No injured cavers recorded.
On October 1, Lee Sellers, Dalton Pitchford and Martin Davis (20) visited Quatsino Master Cave, a resurgence cave on Vancouver Island. At 3 p.m. they entered and proceeded up a succession of short climbs (some close to freezing waterfalls), fissure traverses and flowstone ledges. One pool is traversed by Swinging on a fixed rope. Another, called the Nasty Pool, is passed by a tricky leap. Sellers and Pitchford made it but when Davis leaped with a hand assist from Pitchford, he fell short. As he fell backwards Pitchford pulled too hard and Davis' arm was dislocated at the shoulder. Even so, he made the other side where the efforts of the other two did not improve his painful, useless arm. In fact it was soon discovered that Davis would have to use his good arm to hold the injured one in a horizontal position-the only way the pain would be lessened. Also, he could only move a few feet at a time before needing to stop to alleviate the pain. Time thus became a factor since their electric lights were not fully charged and they were not wearing wet suits and their clothes were already fairly wet. Pitchford went to the next drop and retrieved a length of goldline rope. This they tied around Davis so that Pitchford could lower him down drops while Sellers aided from below. It was soon found that the victim had to be lowered in this fashion down even the simplest pitches. On one drop he had to be lowered through a waterfall and into the plunge pool. Davis became quite cold and began shivering uncontrollably. A few more difficulties however, and they reached the entrance. The group had been in the cave 5 hours and night had fallen. Sellers and Davis walked straight down hill to some old logging roads where they could be picked up and Pitchford crossed a treacherous ravine to the vehicle to proceed to town to get a 4-wheel drive with which to make the pick-up. Once this was done they proceeded to town to get medical aid only to find they would have to drive another 50 miles to Campbell River. It was 10 hours after the accident before the injury was treated.
Davis cites the following considerations as contributing to the difficulty of the situation: lack of backup lights, lack of wetsuits, lack of pain killers and starting late in the day. In short, they were very lucky the victim was not totally immobilized. A fatality from hypothermia would surely have resulted.