OLD HOMESTEAD CAVE, NULLARBOR – 27 April 2023
One of the activities during the 2023 ASF Post Conference Caving Week was a rescue scenario, so that some of the participants could practise the skills needed to rescue an injured person from a remote cave. It’s important to note that in a place such as the Nullarbor, if there was an injury and the person couldn’t physically get themselves out, it might be days that they’d be waiting for the cavalry (a specially trained Cave Rescue Team) to turn up!
Ian C was the “boss”, he’s with the WA caving rescue group and is the Rescue head-honcho for WA. Brian, the NSW head-honcho couldn’t attend which was unfortunate as poor Ian had only one or two others who knew their “stuff”, everyone else, like me, was a novice. I was keen to participate though, mainly because I want to learn how to use the communication system, I’d be useless underground, but I could manage the above ground coms. Following are a few photos of the set up:
In the doline, you can’t see the thin yellow wire, but this is the wire attached to the Mitchie phone (probably have the wrong spelling of Mitchie), it’s on a reel and will be taken through the cave. They can set up additional comms locations through the cave too, it’s pretty cool.
The phone set up, it’s just like a walkie talkie (the yellow wire and earth wire not attached yet).
This is the “earth” which is attached to the phone set up and screwed into the ground, to make it a good earth, we spilled a little water into the hole. The dirt was quite thin here (rock underneath), so the water helped.
On Thursday morning, while I sat up on the surface learning the comms, the team went down into the cave to suss out the cave and where they’d like to “stage” the incident. This took a good part of the morning, and then they were hard up for a casualty, so I put my hand up. How hard could it be, all I had to do was lay there, right?
So, after lunch I rocked up to the entrance of the doline. We had 2 vehicles there, these would be used as “anchors” for the ropes necessary for the exercise.
First they trussed me up in this “mini” stretcher. It wasn’t very comfortable, was probably one they’d use if the person’s legs were uninjured.
Then they put me in the full stretcher, it’s plastic so it will slide over the rocks without getting stuck. They had to practice setting it up and making sure it was tight so that when it was vertical, I wouldn’t slip down in it.
This is the stretcher that would be used to maneuver me through the tight passages in the cave.
They gave me glasses so I wouldn’t get sand, dust or rocks in my eyes.
When it was time for me to be hauled up the vertical section of the cave, there would be another softer stretcher that would be used inside of the white one. After wrapping me up they asked me again if I was still happy to be the casualty – hell yes!
They untied me and I then went down with one of the guys into the cave. It’s a 60 – 70m rock fall in the doline to the opening of the cave. The doline it’s covered in rocks and boulders, so I had to be careful not to hurt myself. Once in the cave, there’s a dodgy ladder to climb down (about 3m), then a passage to the vertical pitch, about 5m in a man-made shaft, I abseiled down. It wasn’t an easy abseil, someone had left a heavy pack tied onto the end of the rope and I was having to feed the rope the whole way down!
From the bottom of the pitch, we walked/crawled about 10 – 20m into the cave and I sat and waited for about half an hour before the rescue crew (about 6 of them) came down. From here on in they treated me as the casualty, asking me questions about my injuries etc.
When they arrived, they set up the Mitchie phone, so they could communicate with the surface.
Then they helped me onto the stretcher and made sure I was secure for the transport through the cave. The rigging was so tight that I couldn’t move my feet or legs! Once I was all trussed up they started. One of the hardest parts for me was that I couldn’t move my head or arms, I had an itchy nose a couple of times and had to get someone to scratch it, how bad is that?
When I was turned on my side, it was a little disconcerting with the rockface right in my face and sliding along!
They assured me that at any time I could call out “STOP”, and they’d stop straight away, they also operated the same way, if anyone saw that it would be dangerous, they’d call out STOP.
Moving me through one of the passages. At times people were at the back pushing me and the ones at the front had to pull me. At one section they had to put me on my side, the passage was so narrow.
At the bottom of the pitch, they transferred me to the red stretcher and then put the white one back over the red one. The red one is fixed with rigging attachments so that when we got to the vertical part, they’d attach me to a rope and haul me up. Another person travelled up a rope right beside me so that I didn’t spin around, or back into the wall.
At one point they had to adjust the rigging so I was just hanging there, because of gravity, I must have slid down a little which meant that it was much tighter where my arms were and the circulation was cut off, this meant that I didn’t have any circulation in my fingers and they started tingling. I tried to move them around, but being trussed in, I couldn’t move my hands, as soon as I was horizontal again, the feeling came back!
Another shot of the shaft. There were about 4 or 5 guys at the top on the Z-haul dragging me up, then there was something set up so that I could be maneuvered over the edge onto the rocks.
Once over the edge there were more boulders to get me through. The three people that were at the bottom of the shaft had to quickly prussic up so that they could help move me to the next pitch.
In the meantime, someone was at the back of the group cleaning up all they gear that they others had left behind whilst they were moving me.
At the bottom of the ladder they put me down while they were setting up the ladder pitch and then I was hauled up again with another Z-haul, at least that’s what I think they used. I think there was someone beside me to guide the stretcher again.
At each rigging station, those that had been carrying me had to go up and help hauling!
I’m finally up in the doline now (the doline is the big gaping hole which is formed when the roof of the passageway falls in, it’s a massive field of boulders.
I was at this part of the cave for quite a long time as there was a lot of work being done to set up the Tyrolean traverse. It would have been too dangerous to try to carry me across the boulder field. Imaging 4 – 6 people all trying to negotiate their way through the boulders.
Another view of the doline, from the boulders 5m from the ladder pitch.
Setting up the Tyrolean. Three people were left behind with me to steady the stretcher, everyone else was needed at the two ends of the Tyrolean, one group pulling in the slack and the other group letting out the slack.
By now it’s dark and I’m still down in the boulder field (lol).
This by the way was the most dangerous part for me (the casualty) as if the rigging wasn’t set right, I would have dropped down, that would have hurt. Or if one part wasn’t tensioned, I could have pendulum-d into the rock face.
Finally, we’re back up the top and I was carried to the car. I thought they’d give up by this time and let me out of the stretcher, but they did the whole exercise as though I really was a casualty!
And then they un-trussed me!
I was really, really happy to be out of that stretcher. I was in it for a total of 5 hours! I was well and truly ready for a beer (thank you Anne Marie).
I have to say though, it didn’t seem like 5 hours – I had the easy part, I just had to lay there! The rescue group were amazing, and they were well and truly stuffed at the end, there was so much carrying and hauling. I cannot imagine how hard it would be with a full on rescue, this cave has 35k or passageways, just imagine if someone was hurt right at the end.
Big thank you to Ian for letting me participate and to Minky and Steph for the photos.
If you want to see what actually happened, here’s the video, love the music Minky!
You really are certifiably insane!! So courageous.
I just watched this with Laurie Pankow, you might remember her from Cold Duck parties. We are on the North Shore and watched this together. Both of us were amazed and terrified watching the video! Kudos to you !!!!! Thanks for sharing!
Hey Kathy, lovely to hear from you, and can certainly understand you’re saying I’m insane, sometimes even I wonder about that!