Injured caver saved after 11 days
728 experts toil to rescue 52-year-old man
BERLIN —A German spelunker who was seriously injured in a rock fall was brought up alive from almost a kilometre underground Thursday after 11 days.
The rescue operation involved 728 experts from five countries, supplied by helicopters flying around the clock.
Johann Westhauser was trapped 975 metres underground in the Riesending cave complex under the Bavarian Alps. He was so badly hurt in a rock fall that many doubted he would emerge alive.
The 52-year-old had to wait in temperatures of 3 C as the rescuers inched toward him.
Few rescue operations have ever gone as deep. The escape route passed through 300-metre vertical shafts, twisting canyons, underg rou nd water falls and bottlenecks so tight an average man could barely squeeze through. It was so arduous that an experienced fellow caver exploring with Westhauser took more than 10 hours to climb out and raise the alarm.
Eventually, some rescuers reached him and they began an unprecedented operation, perhaps the most expensive in German history. Westhauser suffered a traumatic brain injury in the fall, but doctors decided he was stable enough to be moved.
He was strapped into a stretcher and wrapped in layers of polystyrene to protect him against the cold. More than 200 rescuers began the gruelling task of carrying him to the surface.
Westhauser was at risk of internal bleeding in the brain throughout. Doctors kept a drill at hand in case they needed to bore through his skull to relieve the pressure. As soon as he emerged from the ground, he was flown by helicopter to medical care.
Westhauser is now safely in a clinic where his condition is being evaluated.