Rescue of American caver in Turkey is set to begin
TASELI PLATEAU, Turkey – An American researcher who fell ill almost more than 3,000 feet below the entrance of a cave in Turkey has recovered sufficiently for rescue teams to start the process of moving him out, an operation that could last three or four days, a Turkish official was quoted as saying on Friday.
Mark Dickey, a 40-year-old experienced caver, suddenly became ill with stomach bleeding during an expedition with a handful of others in the Morca cave in southern Turkey’s Taurus Mountains. Rescuers from across Europe have rushed there to help treat Dickey and to extract him from the cave.
“The doctors we sent down were very successful in treating him,” Cenk Yildiz, a regional official from Turkey’s disaster relief agency, AFAD, told the IHA news agency. “We are now in a position to evacuate him.”
“This is a difficult operation. It would take a (healthy) person 16 hours to come out. This operation will last at least three or four days,” Yildiz said. “Our priority is health. Our aim is to conclude this operation without anyone coming under any danger.”
Rescuers believe Dickey will have to stop and rest frequently at various points along the way up.
Another Turkish official said rescuers were waiting for doctors to give the go-ahead for the difficult operation to begin.
Recep Salci, the head of AFAD’s search and rescue department, told HaberTurk TV that the plan was to lift Dickey on a stretcher but to use a “security belt” system to lift him through the cave’s narrow openings.
“We are trying to expand the narrow areas by making small explosions, by breaking some areas,” Salci said.
Doctors gave Dickey IV fluids and 4 liters of blood inside the cave, he said. More than 30 rescuers were inside the cave on Friday afternoon, and teams made up of a doctor and three or four others take turns staying with the American at all times, Salci said.
“Our aim is to bring him out and to have him hospitalized as soon as possible,” he said.
More than 170 people, including doctors, paramedics and experienced cavers, are involved in the operation.
Members of Italy’s National Alpine and Speleological Rescue Team joined rescue teams from Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Turkey late Thursday.