-
May 14, 2008 12:36 pm US/Mountain
-
Digg |
Facebook |
E-mail
|
Print
Cave Rescue Network Holds Seminar On Cave Rescues
By Phillip Yates, Glenwood Springs Post Independent
GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) ―
Conducting a rescue operation in the mountains is tough enough.
Imagine trying to rescue someone inside a cave. The challenges are many.
Global positioning system receivers don't work, and cell phones can't make a call.
"We actually have to haul in an Army field phone, which is a technology that you don't typically see in a lot of environments," said Marty Morey, associate director of the Colorado Cave Rescue Network, an organization that provides cave rescue training and maintains cave rescue equipment in Colorado. "You might bring people up through pits and take them through tight, nasty (passages)."
Morey was one of 13 instructors who taught roughly 80 students about how to overcome some of those obstacles during a two-day cave rescue seminar last month in Glenwood Springs. The seminar was organized by the Colorado Cave Rescue Network (CCRN).
The seminar included lectures and practicing transportation techniques through outdoor obstacle courses. The seminar concluded with a full-scale practice in the Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park.
"Caving is not a particularly dangerous activity for properly equipped and trained cavers, but accidents can and do happen. We're glad that we can help the Colorado Cave Rescue Network with this training," said Steve Beckley, a caver who co-owns the Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park with his wife, Jeanne.
About 60 percent of the 80 students who participated in the seminar are "cavers" -- simply, people who go underground -- in Colorado, Utah and Washington, while the others are associated with search-and-rescue groups in Colorado, Morey said.
Cave rescues are rare -- there have been only about two in the last 10 years in Colorado -- but can be extremely difficult, Morey said. The seminar was designed to introduce people to "what works" in cave rescues and how best to respond if someone gets hurt while in a cave, Morey said.
"It's maybe 12 hours, if we are lucky and everything goes well, before we can get the first rescue people on site," she said. "In 12 hours without basic medical care, it could get really severe."
The seminar also introduced cavers to some of the risks and to encourage them to be "extra, extra careful and don't get hurt in the first place," Morey said.
(© 2008 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)