A community’s boldest
It takes guts to be on this kind of rescue
There were more similarities between the Thai rescue and the Stone County rescue than most would like to imagine. As the world was watching the cave rescue attempts in Thailand for the last week or so, some folks in Arkansas were reliving what happened right here in 1965.
In April of that year, four spelunkers were trapped for a day in Stone County’s Rowland Cave. The papers reviewed the event last week:
Our explorers went deep into the cave, to see where it led, as explorers will do. They eventually tired, tried to turn around to go out again, and were trapped by rising waters. But at least they had more to eat than the soccer team in Thailand. The four local men split a bologna sandwich and a can of fruit cocktail.
The men eventually got out when rescuers—from the National Speleological Society and U.S. Navy—reached them, and everybody was able to scuba-dive out.
“It was a long, cold ordeal until the divers came,” remembered one of the men, Steve Wilson, “and it seemed like a long, long time after the last guy went out and I was there by myself. My experience with the scuba diving was that I was on the verge of panic.”
One of the Navy rescue divers, exhausted by hours of swimming, suffered a heart attack and died during the effort. Just as an experienced Thai diver died the other day bringing oxygen to the trapped soccer team.
There’s a lot to be said, and is said, about those who serve and protect. Cops, firefighters, EMTs, emergency room nurses, etc. But there’s also a lot to be said, and often isn’t, about the specialized crews out there—pilots, emergency boat operators, utility workers—who also keep us safe. Let’s add divers to the list. For who are you gonna call when a car hits the water in January or cave explorers get lost during floods in April? You’re gonna call those who put on wet suits and breathing apparatus, grab a flashlight and go into dark caves, murky waters, and feel along the bottom of lakes.
Finest and bravest are taken. Let’s call these folks with the scuba gear our community’s Boldest.