Caught in a flooding cavern/ By Per Ola and Emily D’ Aulaire

Caught in a flooding cavern/ By Per Ola and Emily D’ Aulaire

            “The young explorer knew that the ultimate test was in his own mind.”

            Spring Mill Park in Indiana, is pock-marked by sinkholes and laced with limestone caves. Roman Lazowski, an ex-marine university student, and Michael Hall, a prison officer, were intriqued by the sinuous series of dark, wild passages that had been  carved by underground streams there. Hall had been through the caverns more than a dozen times, Roman once, the previous summer, when the two  had made the same underground journey that they were  now contemplating.

            The two 24-year-olds pitched camp on Sunday evening. It rained that night, but by Monday morning—although the ground was soggy—the sultry skies promised a hot, humid day. Dressed in shorts and canvas shoes and carrying waterproof torches, the two men crept through the entrance to the 1,300-meter-long subterranean passage. It was 10 am, July 1 – and for Roman Lazowski it was the beginning of a nightmare.

            The cave follows a wide, shallow stream over which a limestone ceiling vaults like a gothic arch. Then the roof drops to just over a meter. Beyond, the passageway opens up again, passes through a pair of large underground rooms, and winds through chest-deep pools of water and down a cascade, the bottom of which is strewn with rocks. Finally the stream splashes into daylight beneath a stone slab.

            At first, everything went as expected. The two explorers waded along, enjoying the chill of the water. But outside it had begun to rain again. Water entered already saturated ground and drained into  the cave. At first, the stream level rose almost imperceptibly. But the rise was relentless.

            Roman and Michael came to a low passage, stooped to enter, and noticed that the water was running deep and fast, reaching above their waists. “ I’ve never seen it like this before,” Michael said.

            Soon water was over their heads. They swam with the current, bouncing from wall to wall, clawing at rocks to slow them.

            Finally, out of breath, they manage to stop. Roman clung to one side of the tunnel, Michael to the other, each holding himself against the current with difficulty. “I think the water will go down soon,” Michael shouted.

            Dead end.

            Roman’s toes were on a narrow, submerged ledge; his fingers gripped the wall. The next thing he knew, he was falling backwards into the torrent. The raging water ripped off his shoes; his torch smashed against a rock. He felt himself being pulled under, and then he hit a wall of rock. He had been washed to the side of the main passage, into a dead end—only about ten meters from the spot where the stream emerged from the cave.

            In the darkness, Roman felt a tiny ledge about a meter under water. He was able to step up on to it and steady himself against the eddies that swirled around him. He yelled to Michael over the roar of water and heard a distant shout in return.

            Don’t panic, Roman told himself. Find a dry spot.

            Groping blindly, he felt another ledge, about ten centimeters wide and a meter long, about a meter above the surface. Drawing on his Marine survival training, he climbed up and drew his knees to his chest to save body heat. With his fingers he felt the ceiling above, the water below. In horror, he realized that the stream was still rising.

            Further back in the cave, Michael clung to the wall. With the swift current threatening to sweep him off his feet, he decided to plunge in and chance it. Maybe he’d end up where Roman was, and at least they’d be together. “I’m coming!” he yelled and leapt into the black, churning water.

            The current shot Michael nearly 100 meters downstream. He held his breath until his lungs felt like bursting. Aghast, Roman watched Michael streak past, close under water, torchlight shining eerily on his face.

            Suddenly—miraculously—Michael found himself in daylight. Bruised and battered, with a gaping wound on his left forearm, he pulled himself out of the water and staggered to a car park above the ravine.

            Torrential waters.

             Bill Carlisle, the park’s property manager, found Michael lying on the pavement. “My friend is still in the cave,” Michael said, his teeth chattering. “You have got to help him.”

            Shortly after Michael was taken to the hospital, word of the incident went out to Don Paquette, chief co-ordinator of the National Cave Rescue Commission (NCRC). He immediately headed for Spring Mill, and found the water churning from the cave exit. He guessed that the torrent’s speed was at least 80 kph. There would be no getting into the cave from that end. The entrance, too, looked impassable. “ The best thing to do is wait,” Carlisle advised Paquette. “The water should be lower by morning.”

            Inside the cave Roman lay back on the ledge, his head touching stalactites that hung from the ceiling. He could not tell wether it was night or day. The water had risen almost to the ledge, less than a meter from the ceiling and—for all he knew—Michael was now dead. Momentarily, he thought how easy it would be to slip into the water and disappear. No ! he told himself. You’re going to make it.

            But he was afraid to relax, knowing he might fall into the water if he slept. Huddled in the blackness, he remembered a Polish prayer his mother used to recite at bedtime, and he said it though he didn’t understand the words.

            Roman’s father, as a young Polish patriot, had survived six years in a Second World War concentration camp. If he could make it, Roman told himself,  I can make it. I have Dad’s strength in me.

            It was still raining on Tuesday morning, and the waters showed no sign of abating. Paquette decided to take a crew into the cave anyway. Wearing wet suits, life-jackets, helmets and headlamps, they secured a rope at the entrance, fastened it to a raft loaded with rescue gear and, hanging on to the raft, let the current carry them into the darkness.

            The current was a maelstrom far worse than Paquette had imagined. The lamps on the crew’s helmets barely pierced the gloom as they worked their way down-stream hand over hand along the rope tied at the entrance.

            About 90 meters in, the raft capsized, spilling its contents and pinning the men to a limestone wall. Paquette lost his grip on the rope, but one of the other men managed to grab him by his life-jacket. Then they struggled back to the entrance, emerging unscathed but exhausted and beaten. It had taken them three hours to travel 200 meters.

            On Tuesday evening, July 2, Dr Noel Sloan, assistant medical officer of the NCRC, arrived. He agreed that there was no point in trying to enter the cave again until the water level fell. But Sloan knew that time was running against Roman. After 48 hours in a cave, where the temperature hovers around 13 degrees C, hypothermia would begin to take its toll. And with more thunderstorms headed for the area, it might be impossible to wait for the water to recede.

            Sloan visited Michael in the hospital. Using map, Michael estimated that he and Roman had parted 100 meters from the exit, and about a hundred meters downstream from a widening in the cavern, a “dry room.” There was another cave accessible from the outside, and separated from the dry room by 27 horizontal meters of earth. Perhaps it would be possible to tunnel between them. By midnight on Tuesday, rescuers were burrowing through the limestone with crowbars and shovels.

            Meanwhile, park officials called in a well-drilling rig to sink a shaft into the dry room from above, and other rescuers continued monitoring the water level from inside the cave exit as far as they could go. They waited—and hoped—for a break that would allow an assault from that direction.

            In the darkness, not knowing if anybody was looking for him, Roman played mind games. Making a list of what he would do when he got out. When he felt himself slipping off to sleep he  would wake himself up by screaming, “Help, I’m still here!” Just keep yourself occupied, he thought. You are going to make it.

            At 8.30 on Wednesday morning, July 3, rescuers monitoring the water level of the cave were astounded to hear a voice calling for help. Water still slammed against the overhanging slab that formed the cave exit, but an intermittent airspace of a few centimeters let sound through. A cry went up. “He’s alive!”

            Dr Sloan picked up a megaphone and yelled. “Are you hurt?”

            “I’m okay,” came the weak response. “Just get me out of here.”

            Sloan knew that although they could now hear Roman, the situation remained precarious. While still beyond reach, Roman might believe rescue was imminent and relax. As the hours dragged on, a voice on the bullhorn reminded him to stay put.

            At 4.40pm, Steve Collins, one of the rescuers, decided to try to get deeper into the cave. Easing himself into the current, he saw a 15-centimeter airspace between  the stream and the slab and spotted a rope streaming from inside, a remnant from a previous venture. Maybe he could haul himself into the cave where the roof seemed higher. He grabbed the rope, held his breath as his face slipped under, and went in.

            Roman saw the light from Collins’s helmet. He wanted to leap at it, embrace it. Collins was five meters away on the opposite side of the river. “Stay where you are,” he shouted. Then he turned back towards the exit to call out for more rope and additional help.

            Collins was promptly passed a rope, one end of which he secured to a piton in the wall. Dr Sloan arrived as Collins was tossing the rest of the coil to Roman, yelling at him to wrap it around a projection near his perch. Both Collins and Dr Sloan were amazed that Roman had the strength left to carry out the task. Once the rope was in place, Collins pulled himself through the current to the trapped cave explorer.

            With Roman in a life-jacket, helmet and seat sling, Collins slowly ferried him to Dr Sloan’s side of the stream. But just as the doctor, who had been making his way towards them, reached out to grab Roman, the piton anchoring the rope gave way. Lunging, Sloan seized Roman and the pair hurtled beneath the slab—into daylight and the arms of rescuers.

            It was 7.03pm, and after more than two and a half days without food or sleep, Roman’s vital signs were stable and his body temperature was surprisingly close to normal. He was hospitalized for observation, then sent home to recuperate.

            By the time the autumn term arrived, Roman was back at the university, just another student among the 33,000 undergraduates.

            “I may look the same on the outside, but I’m changed,” he says of his ordeal. “A lot of people risked their lives for me. Now, every day seems more precious to me.”

“ Man usually appreciates his freedom when he is no longer free  or when he has obtained it by infinite sacrifice.”