As part of the promotion for James Tabor’s book Blind Descent a list of potentially fatal caving mishaps has been making the rounds. (Curious? Read, Boing Boing, etc.)
Having been on some extended caving descents myself, this list made me laugh, reminded me of some close calls, and generally made we want to get underground again. Funny: #32 really wouldn’t kill you. Creepy: #43. Really – this could have happened to us once and we were anxiously hypervigilant to prevent it. Finally, if #52 doesn’t almost happen you then you’re really not having enough fun!
I don’t have any pictures from those excursions back in NY State and Pennsylvania but I do have some recent ones from a beach cave here in Northern California. I’ll post those later.
52 Ways to Die in a Cave
- Acetylene explosion (acetylene still used by some as fuel for cave lamps)
- Camp stove explosion (white gas or butane)
- Fall while climbing rock
- Fall while downclimbing rock
- Fall while ascending rope
- Fall while rappelling (descending rope)
- Rockfall
- Dig or tunnel collapse
- Unplanned detachment from rebelay
- Failure to complete change from rappel to ascent, and vice versa
- Prusik knots jammed
- Prusik knots won’t grip
- Ascenders slip on muddy, wet, or icy rope (this one almost got me on a 250-foot drop)
- Strangulation in vertical gear
- Fall from losing grip on handline
- Rope anchor failure
- Rope failure
- Rope cut by falling rock
- Ladder failure
- Uncontrolled rappel
- Harness carabiner opens during rappel (as with Chris Yeager)
- Rappel shunt (emergency brake) defeated during rappel
- Unwanted rappel shunt activation
- Rappel off end of rope (as with Alexander Karabikhin)
- Drop rope
- Rope recoils out of reach after rappel
- Rappel into pit without ascent gear
- Foot hang
- Chemical contamination of rope
- Animals eat rope
- Rappel rack nut falls off
- Hair caught in rappel rack
- Clothing or chinstrap caught in rappel rack
- Sewn sling tears
- Exhaustion
- Hypothermia
- Drowning
- Becoming lost
- Out of light
- Entrapment by flood
- Entrapment by rockfall
- Asphyxiation by methane, carbon dioxide, blast fumes, etc.
- Locked inside gated entrance
- Poisonous snakes and insects
- Struck by lightning while in cave stream
- Struck by lightning while talking on cable telephone to surface
- Rabid bat bite
- Bacterial or fungal infection: histoplasmosis, etc.
- Hyperthermia (some caves are 130F)
- Incapacitating injury
- Incapacitating illness
- Stuck in crevice
BLIND DESCENT by James Tabor is in stores on June 15, 2010 and available for preorder now. Learn more at http://www.BlindDescent.com
