| Name | Age | Sex | Injuries | Injured areas |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cross, Andrew | 17 | Not recorded | Not recorded | Not recorded |
| Wilson, Wade | 18 | Not recorded | Not recorded | Not recorded |
At about 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, February 13, three cavers entered a cave off Indian Hills Road SE, in Decatur, Alabama. They used a 120 foot rope as a handline to get down the initial twenty foot vertical drop and subsequent slopes to the 90 foot level. It had been sunny when they entered but rain soon began. On exiting, one caver got up the rope hand-over-hand but the rope became so muddy that the other two couldn't make it. The rope was knotted and thrown back down but water began showering down so the two, Andrew Cross (17) and Wade Wilson (18), waited while their companion went for help. The State Police assembled a rescue team which included troopers, a survival expert and a former member of an aerial assault team. They got to the victims at 8 p.m., attached harnesses and soon completed the evacuation.
The cave was 50 degrees and hypothermia could have been a real danger if the third member of the group had been unable to exit. They were dressed only in jeans and shirts. Needless to say, they were ill-equipped, with flashlights and hand-over-hand vertical technique.
Two cavers were stranded in a muddy, wet cave due to inadequate hand-over-hand rope climbing technique and required rescue.