| Name | Age | Sex | Injuries | Injured areas |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unnamed, Unnamed | Not recorded | Male | Fracture | Ankle |
On October 20, a party of five from Pittsburgh went to Hellhole. The group consisted of an experienced (?) leader and four novices. The first person down the entrance drop, a girl who had been in a cave once before and had rappelled once before, found the rope to be 10 feet short of the bottom. The leader went down on another rope alongside hers. His rope was 40 feet short of the bottom, but he was able to talk with her from his position on the second rope. It is difficult to shout any but the simplest of phrases up and down the drop.
The eventual solution to the girl's dilemma was for her to jump the remaining distance to the floor. The floor consists of reasonably flat gravel underneath the entrance. She made her jump with no injury. The leader then tried to transfer an ascender, which he was using for a safety, and himself, to the first rope. In attempting to switch, he fell from his rope. There were no knots tied in the end of either rope. He suffered a badly fractured ankle with splintering of the bones.
Members of the party went to a nearby climbing shop for help. There they got a Stokes litter (which the Forest Service provides for climbing accidents) and a rescue team consisting of seven climbers who happened to be available. A rope was rigged for hauling, using a sling to keep a pulley (or carabiner?) over the entrance in a conventional manner. Two people, one rescuer and one of the original party, went down to secure the victim in the litter. The pulling was done with a Land Rover that was driven into the field next to the entrance.
Some difficulty was experienced with the litter catching on small projections, but it always freed itself as more force was applied. There were not enough people to haul efficiently with only manpower.
Analysis: "Of course only one person knows exactly what went wrong in the attempted transfer. The general impression to the rescuers was that he was holding himself in rappel while transferring an ascender from one rope to another and lost his grip. Any one of a number of things could have prevented the accident - a longer rope, a knot tied in the end of the rope, training the girl to change from rappel to prusik, a better technique for switching ropes, or not attempting to enter the cave." (Thrun)