When The Only Cave Exit Looks Like This

hello everyone and welcome back to scary interesting in this video we're going to go over three cave stories that went horrifyingly wrong but are sort of unique among the others on the channel in particular the events of the first story were so unlikely and so strange that something like it will likely never happen again as always viewer discretion is advised [Music] buried in the thick Limestone of the state of Georgia are at least 513 caves which have been cut into the Rock by acidic groundwater that's been trickling through cracks and crevices in the stone exploring some of these is a challenge like for example Ellison's cave which has the two deepest drops in the US named fantastic at 178 M or 586 ft and incredible at 134 M or 440 ft other caves though are much easier making them suitable for novice cavers who want their first experience underground one of the most popular and accessible of these is known as Howard's waterfall Cave Part of its popularity is how easy it is to get to the entrance which sits right by a road there's also a small waterfall over the entrance but that's not where it gets its name as you might expect it's called Howard's waterfall cave because the rock formations inside look like they're casking down the Walls today iron gates protect part of the cave where the walls are covered by Cherokee cury which is a type of writing invented in the early 19th century according to their beliefs caves are a doorway to the underworld world and the writing is thought to describe three Cherokees who were either killed or captured there this writing also dates all the way back to the American Civil War the gates went up because despite the entrance being a claustrophobic crawl the rest of the cave is pretty horizontal and easy to navigate this ledge the riding getting covered by graffiti so a gate was built to protect it however even though you can't get to that part of the cave without permission there's still a huge area to explore it's 2300 M or 770 ft of Passages at the back of the system is a chamber known as the mud sculpt room where people take clay off the floor and build sculptures to leave behind it's also filled with bats and hundreds of spiders for those who find them more interesting than scary for the most part Howard's waterfall cave can be a great place to visit but not everything in the cave is so nice one of the chambers is known as the disaster room because on April 16th 1966 something terrible happened there Boy Scout explor poost 76 was formed a few weeks before April 16th 1966 that Saturday morning they gathered in Atlanta to head over to Trenton for what was going to be their second outing they'd done a bike ride together the week before but this time it was time for some real Adventure all nine of them had been Caven before so a trip to Howard's waterfall cave would be a perfect challenge for them at 6:00 a.m. they met up neark Community Center where their leader Phil how and his assistant Mike Moss were waiting Phil was an experienced belker and he ensured the boys were dressed in warm clothes had plenty of food and more water than they'd need the night before one of the boys even joked with his mom about how they had enough water for a week which was good because it meant Phil was taking it seriously that and the fact that Phil knew the cave well made the kids and their parents confident everything would be fine sometime between 9:00 and 9:30 the kids pulled up the road and head it into the cave being spring the entrance was muddy but they could stand up start their carbide lamps wash themselves down with excess water and explore everything once they got through the tight section in the 60s carbide lamps were still more popular than electric lamps because they lasted longer were much cheaper at the time and were more durable these worked so well in fact that some cers even held out until LED lamps were invented many years later before going electric at around 12:30 they came to one of the few vertical sections of the cave not too far from an exit which was a 40ft pit at one side of the section known as the big cave the drop formed a pocket making an easy climb so mik made his way to a ledge at the bottom while Phil started to help the boys on to a ledge about halfway down the boys climbed down the pit until there were only four left on the outcut with Phil the rest were at ground level with Mike one of the boys then began to climb down when Mike saw what he described as a flame like a tale of a jet coming from either the floor or the cave wall this was followed by an explosive Fireball that knocked Mike and the kids to the ground in an instant all their lights went out and then for 15 minutes in total darkness Mike crawled around until he spotted daylight and then away out he then quickly found a phone and called Emergency Services before long hundreds of spelunkers from the air descended onto the cave five immediately threw the ropes into the entrance and headed in to rescue the Trap Scouts they managed to find six of the boys and got them out including one who was severely hurt it looked like his lamp had set off some sort of explosion and he was severely burned an ambulance then came to take him to the hospital where he was treated for third degree burns on his legs and face back inside the cave Phil was still on the ledge they had gotten to right before the explosion happened they were just 20 ft from the cave slor and only 300 ft from the entrance but whenever Phil tried to go any further he felt faint whenever he tried to climb down as he struggled to figure a way off the ledge the cavers went back in to find the remaining Scouts but the further they went into the cave the worst it smelled of gasoline they had no idea how it got there or where it was coming from but either way in the end the smell was too much it forced them to turn back and they only just made it to the mouth of the cave before they passed out they then had to be pulled out of the cave by other Rescuers and were rushed to the hospital horrifyingly only two of them survived the most dangerous part was not actually the gas the explosion in the cave had left a pocket of carbon monoxide between the entrance and where the scouts were trapped Rescuers just had to hope the scouts were trapped in some section where the air was okay at around 6:30 that evening lights were rigged over the mouth of the cave as the sun went down by then staff sergeant Leroy Coxwell a fire protection specialist had managed to contact the Trap Scouts using a breathing apparatus luckily they were still alive but on the wrong side of a poisonous Cloud the lights were also no use to Leroy all he could hear were voices in total darkness he shouted to them to stay put and not panic and that they'd be coming in any minute however it would end up taking 4 hours to get to them their air tanks only lasted 15 minutes which wasn't long enough to reach them and get them out safely so they would have to wait until they could get more suitable equipment in the meantime they tried pumping fresh air into the cave to eliminate the fumes but that didn't help finally at 10:30 that night once they had new air tanks Leroy and some other Rescuers went through the darkness and up to the trap boys they then got to them fitted them with masks and led them through the dark tunnels once they reached the mouth of the cave one of The Rescuers shouted to the crowd outside that the three remaining boys were okay but tragically Phil wasn't with them in the end Phil's attempts to get through the gas cloud had been too much and he lost his life to the carbon monoxide in the aftermath the real mystery was what caused the explosion in the first place there was speculation at the time that the gas might have been caused by a fungus growing in the cave it was only years later when it was discovered that a broken tank at a gas station nearby had been leaking gas Lane into the ground the vapor from this gas then made its way through the cracks and crevices to Howard's waterful cave and what's now known as the disaster room it was then ultimately ignited by the carbide lamp the scouts used on May 28th 1993 Nevin Davis walked outside his Farmhouse and walked almost a mile to his friend's Farm in Burnsville Virginia along with another friend Nevin had volunteered to help clear out some brush and garbage that had worked its way inside a crack at the bottom of a sinkhole on their friend's property over the course of 70 hours they hacked away at barberry bushes and removed garbage and when the job was done the three men discovered the entrance to a previously unknown cave when they did nean couldn't believe his luck he just happened to be an avid longtime caver and now now he had a brand new one to explore and map basically in his own backyard much of the following spring and summer would see the men digging and clearing Rock every weekend until they discovered several entrances and a covered almost 2 miles of underground tunnels as 1995 got underway so did MPP in the cave on Friday January 13th Nevin and four others which included Tommy shlat Mike Arts Mike FICO and Ben Schwarz entered what had been du to barbar cave for a weekend of exploration and mapping the plan was to Camp inside the cave on Friday Saturday and Sunday night before wrapping things up by 1:00 on Monday afternoon at about 140 ft or 43 M deep barbarry cave wasn't the deepest in the world but it did a great job of insulating the inside from the outside world much like other caves staying inside was like visiting another planet where day and night or even time itself seemed to not exist by then as well as of their most recent measurement about 3 and2 miles or about 5 1/2 km of tunnels have been explored and mapped and for what the cave locked in size it made up for difficulty the cave was challenging enough that the owner had to put a steel grate with a padlock over the main entrance to keep anyone out who wasn't experienced or knowledgeable enough to explore it on their trip in January Friday night in the first part of Saturday went exactly as planned but there was something happening outside beginning Saturday afternoon that was about to bring the five cavers back to Earth in a harsh way they had no idea but it was raining heavily for hours outside things eventually got so soggy that mud and rock began to loosen and tons of it slid down the sinkhole and into the entrance of the main tunnel not only did this almost completely block about 100 ft of the way out but it also cut off an underground stream and started flooding an area known as the near sup which was located between the cavers camp and the cave entrances then throughout the rest of Saturday night water continued to accumulate in the near sump without any of the men inside knowing about these dangerous changes on Sunday morning the five men woke up and continued the last bit of mapping before packing up camp and heading back to the cave entrance when they reached the near sump what had been a successful Expedition that went off without a hitch was was now looking more like an impending disaster they found that the entire remainder of the tunnel was blocked with the exception of a 2 to 5 in gap between the top of the water in the roof of the cave at the time as well they had no idea how far the blockage extended or if the gap of air at the top of the tunnel ran the entire length of the clog had these been inexperienced cers this probably would have been the time Panic set in but instead the men were fairly calm about the situation they had plenty of room on their end to stand and move around the cave and they were prepared with sleeping bags clothes food water and other supplies that were more than enough for the amount of time they had planned for all they had to do was wait for the water to dissipate then when Monday passed and Tuesday arrived without any change in the water there was slight concern among the group so after a discussion of their options the two smallest among them 25-year-old Mike FICO and 20-year-old Ben volunteered to try to make their way through the mostly blocked tunnel in order to do this they'd have to put themselves into a terrifying position one at a time they got him to their backs in 5 ft of water with their noses scraping it the roof of the tunnel then using the walls for Lever they start to push their way into the blockage at some points the water was so high that their eyes ears and mouths were submerged and only their noses stuck out the water but somehow they managed to keep calm and make it the end of the blockage within hours of contacting Emergency Services the outside of barbar cap was filled with the activity of a rescue after getting organized thankfully since all the five men were such Avid cers and so active in the cave Community they had made a lot of close friends and acquaintances over the years who could help with the rescue in order to get Nevin Tommy and Mike Arts out of the Cave the clog would need to be cleared and that could only be done a foot at a time and all by hand Mike FICO and Ben were among the first Rescuers in and once again they found themselves on their backs with their noses pressed against the roof of the cave as they did this they immediately NOS that the way out had been much easier than heading back into the cave in that direction water was flowing right at them at around 100 gallons per minute making every inch of progress a challenge not only that but as they moved forward they had to clear mud and debris using their feet and hands and the more of it they removed the fast the current came at them which only slowed things down more Rescuers who hadn't already escaped the cave like Mike and Ben were shocked by the conditions they had to work in for six full hours they were all lying on their backs swiping dur as if they were making snow angels and only managed to dig out about 25 ft of blockage right around then they began to hear Tommy in the tunnel who's pushing himself through the clog the same way Mike and Ben had when he reached Rescuers in The Wider opening they had created to that point the rest of the way out was easy but Nevin who was 52 at the time and 34-year-old Mike Arts were still inside and unable to Traverse the tight quarters that still remained several of the smaller volunteers then inched their way through and delivered the two men a care package of supplies before exiting the following day digging resumed early in the morning and it was initially estimated that it would take about 2 days worth of work to create enough of a tunnel for the last two cers to get through and by 6:00 that evening Nevin and Mike Arts were out of the cave and all five were safe healthy and accounted for throughout the ordeal the media stayed outside barbarry cave hoping to hear the firsthand accounts of the five cers but all of them refused to be interviewed and instead they all went to nevan's Farmhouse almost as if to hide out some of the volunteers who were interviewed told reporters that each of the five men felt an intense amount of embarrassment over the whole ordal as such experienced cavers they saw the rescue operation as completely overblown those close to them even said that they never once feared that they wouldn't eventually get out of the cave and had they waited long enough they were sure that they would have gotten out alive and well at some point but if you followed the channel for some time you know that not all the stories end so well [Music] William cogin and James jaala were longtime best friends that first met as Boy Scouts in 1976 they were inseparable ever since and one of their favorite things to do was enjoy the outdoors and some of their Fondest Memories of their Scout experience together took place inside caves that explore as part of a troop a decade later William James were 27 and 24 years old and were itching to make plans for some kind of outdoor activity over Memorial Day weekend which was fast approaching by chance one of them came across a brochure for a tourist attraction in South Central Kentucky called Buzzard Ru cave located on private property Buzzard Roost cave sits just outside of a place called Cave City this is an area with more than 400 mil or nearly 645 km of explored caves and tunnels and it's home to the world's longest known Cave System among the nine caves that make up the system visitors of all experience levels have 21 different guided tours to choose from but Buzzard R's Cav seem like the perfect choice there was one particular selling point that made it a must visit it offered something called a wild tour which was a guided experience that allowed people to see the cave in its natural state so on Friday May 28th 1993 William James and another friend named Kevin loaded up in the car and left the Chicago land area to head for Kentucky they planed to Camp somewhere in Cave City on Friday and Saturday night and then wrap up the trip with the Buzzard Roose cave tour and while all three of the men had been inside caves before this was their first real spelunking trip and the excitement remained High all the way till Sunday when they arrived at the cave that morning they met with the tour guide David who walked him through some of the paperwork they need to complete beforehand in addition to the wild tour David offered a much more tame historic tour of the cave this avoided much of the Cave's tight corridors and vertical shafts because of this their plan was to take the historic tour first they could get an idea of what it was like inside before fully committing to the wild tour Kevin however didn't like what he heard and at the last minute he backed to the day's plans William and James didn't want to leave Kevin behind but they were already there and Kevin was insistent that they go on without him so during the late morning William James J and a small group of others went on the historic tour David made sure to point out different areas and tunnels that were included on it to James it almost seemed like David was doing his best to talk them out of taking that tour but it was really just his way of making sure they knew what they were getting into nothing David could say would deter William and James though the danger only excited them more and by the end of the historic tour they were amped up for the wild version later that afternoon when 4:00 rolled around William James and four others met outside the cave ready to begin the tour with David and after handing each of them two light sources he asked if were ready and they all eagerly replied they were so with that they started to make the way inside the wild tour then began with a very narrow tunnel which immediately presented problems for William at 6 ft tall and 220 lb he didn't exactly have a small frame and more than once he found himself wedged between the rock walls and unable to immediately wiggle free eventually he would work his way through but each brief moment of being trapped was enough to make his heart skip a beat in fact before he even made it through the first section William was having serious second thoughts about whether he was fit for this type of activity unfortunately there was nowhere to go but onward though even if he wanted to back out of the tour he would have to crawl to the end of the tunnel before he could turn around then once he was through things open up again enough that he decided to just keep going the next section had the group to send down several vertical shafts the standard way to navigate a vertical shaft is by climbing a rope fixed to a safety harness but Buzzard ru's cave had permanent rope ladders instead and the group would have to climb down and back up two of them the first was down a 30t or 9 M drop and the second was around 20 ft or 6 M High of the two the second was the more challenging climb the rope ladder was uneven and it was up against jutting rocks making it difficult to get a solid handhold on the rungs but everyone in the group made it to the bottom of the shaft without an instant and by the time they all got down there they reached the turnaround point of the tour this was where David allowed group members to explore for a while before beginning the trip back up when he checked his watch by that point however he realized they were drastically behind schedule he then gathered the group of six and told them they did a great job climbing down but now he had to leave to go make a call to the property owner that they were running behind he instructed the group to have a look around for a few minutes and then head back to the surface the same way they came in if they weren't back in a little over half an hour David told them he'd come back and get them the six cavers were kind of stunned that they'd be left alone inside the cave and watched in disbelief as David climbed his way out but the best thing they could do was just follow David's suggestion so they looked around for a bit before deciding to start back up the Rope ladders James was chosen as the anchor man who would bring up the rear of the group and his job was to hold the bottom of the rope ladder to steady it for everyone else just ahead of James would be William who was still a little Jarred from his experience getting stuck a few times in the way in when it was his turn William grabbed a hold of the rope ladder and started pulling himself up rung by rung but he didn't get very far before having to come back down and reset he was easily the biggest of the group and it was clear that he was also struggling more than everyone else after two attempts to get to the top of the first ladder William started a third time this time he reached the halfway point and just when it looked as though he was going to make it he slipped off the ladder smacked into a rock that juted out from the wall and landed with a sickening thud Direct directly on the back of his head it was like a slow motion moment for James as he watched his best friend falling through the air and hitting the floor with a tremendous impact James then rushed to him who was already bleeding profusely from his head and was surprised to find him conscious and seemingly with his wits about him incredibly William insisted he was fine and that his head wound looked worse than it actually was so after brushing himself off he approached the ladder to give it another shot by that point some of the others who already made up the first letter had started coming back down to assist and with their help William was fin able to make it up the first and then the second ladder while this was going on two of the others in the group hurried out of the cave to let David know and to get him to call an emergency services to help William get out however when they returned with him they did so without a medical kit and without contacting anyone David was instead worried about causing a scene and wanted to see if the situation could be handled by them before bringing anyone else in in his eyes everything was under control that was until will started to work his way through the same tunnel he briefly got stuck in earlier with one arm pinned between between his stomach and the wall and the other behind his back he was once again wedged in place this time however he couldn't budge an inch and he was stuck at an angle that had him nearly upside down to give you an idea of just how tight this area was when David finally relented and called Emergency Services Rescuers literally had to remove their helmets at certain points inside the tunnel because those sections were so narrow even worse by the time help arrived William was already slipping in and out of Consciousness compounding the ordeal was that Rescuers who received the call thought they were just sewing up to help an injured Cav get get out of the cave when they arrived though they quickly found out that they had an injured and trapped C which greatly complicated the effort one of The Rescuers who showed up at the scene was a doctor who made his way into the cave and immediately began squirming through the only tunnel in or out before long he got close enough to William to get eyes on him and things didn't look good for one thing he couldn't even reach him it was just too tight for him to reach William and then try to get his way back out of the tunnel but the more pressing issue was that William was clearly having a hard time getting air into his body the way he ended up pinned inside the tunnel put immense pressure on his midsection even on the way in there were points where William had to Exhale all the air out of his lungs just for an injur to afford progress but now injured and stuck he couldn't expand his lungs all the way then with the lack of air causing him to continually pass out there was little he could do to assist in their effort either all of this combined meant that for more than 7 hours he remained unmoved inside the tunnel when Rescuers continue to try and reach him finally at 5:00 a.m. on Monday one of Rescuers made the first physical contact with William who hadn't been conscious for some time then when his pulse was taken there wasn't one William was dead around 12:30 that afternoon his body was finally outside the cave that's when David and another one of the group members got out too both were behind him and couldn't Advance with him stuck inside the tunnel an autopsy was performed the next day and the corer determined William's cause of death as compressive and possessional asfixia upon examination of his head the coroner found a severe contusion but it wasn't nearly enough to kill him so ultimately had he not gotten stuck in the whale he likely would have survived vied instead William's body was transported back to Chicago to be identified and claimed by his family James meanwhile drove 8 hours home by himself with nothing but the thoughts of his deceased best friend to accompany him Williams family pointed the blame at David and his company and there were a handful of decisions that are alleged to have directly contributed to William's death the tours were given without NE enough safety equipment and supplies to account for any potential hiccups or Worse inside the cave and he never should have left the group unsupervised to make their own way out maybe more egregious though was deciding not to alert Emergency Services when he learned of what happened to William cave rescue efforts obviously aren't the easiest to organize and mobilize so Rescuers need time to assess the situation and figure out a plan of attack for whatever they might face David's refusal to make that call Cost them three precious hours that could have been the difference between life and death for William James however believed it was a faultless accident that could have happened even if David had been with them if you made it this far thanks so much for watching if you have a story suggestion I'd love to here and you can submit it to the form found in the description in particular if you have any caving stories you'd like to see covered they're getting harder and harder to come by so any that you know of would be awesome thanks again and hopefully I will see you in the next one

Channel: Scary Interesting

Views: 777,844

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Id: bRWa_e9TBxE

Length: 22min 12sec (1332 seconds)

Published: Sun May 12 2024