A caver expert who believed he would never live after falling off a 50ft platform and being trapped for over 50 hours underground, will now join the rescue team that saved his life.
George Linnane said he feels ‘lucky to be alive’ after he was pulled out of the Ogof Ffynnon Ddu cave system beneath the Brecon Beacons by around 250 rescuers from across the UK in November last year.
After breaking his jaw, arm, and ribs in Bristol’s 38-year old age, he now wants to go back underground and join the South and Mid Wales Cave Rescue Team.
‘One of the things that I love most about caving is the sort of camaraderie and the sense of community that we have, this thing that we do, it creates quite a real kind of tight-knit bond between cavers,’ he told the BBC.
‘So it doesn’t surprise me that they achieved what they achieved, but for 300 people to come to my aid from across the country, all come together to achieve one thing as a team… the single bloody-mindedness of it as well.
‘There was no way they were going to let anything other than a good outcome happen. I take my hat off to them.’
He added: ‘I kept flipping between two states – there was “I’m going to fight this and survive”, which became, “I really don’t care”.
George Linnane said he feels ‘lucky to be alive’ after he was pulled out of the Ogof Ffynnon Ddu cave system beneath the Brecon Beacons by around 250 rescuers from across the UK in November last year
After breaking his jaw, arm, and ribs in an accident, the 38-year old will now go back underground and join South and Mid Wales Cave Rescue Team.
‘I kept flipping between two states – there was “I’m going to fight this and survive”, which became, “I really don’t care”’, he told the BBC
The rescue workers worked in shifts and passed the man through the cave system in a stretcher. This is the longest passageway in Britain.
‘The first thing I knew about it was this instantaneous feeling of legs whirling around in mid-air and arms grabbing for something and this kind of feeling that something was happening.
‘But one second I was caving, the next the world had gone mad. And the next it had all gone black, and I woke up in a very different state to when I started.’
He called the pain ‘intense’ and ‘really really not very pleasant at all’.
‘When I woke up I was on a slope of lying on things that hurt, so I knew I couldn’t stay like that for however many hours it was going to take for the help to turn up,’ Mr Linnane said.
‘So I had to move myself, so long story short that involved dragging myself by the tips of my fingers through the dirty for several metres until my head was above my legs. I was screaming and screaming in pain at that point.’
Rescuers needed to free Mr Linnane, who was stuck in a cleft among rocks. They then had to get him to larger dry passages.
Then they would have to enter the cave’s long underground river tunnel and carry him for more than a mile upstream.
They would then have to transport him by ropes, up 100ft vertical shafts, and through tunnels.
After that, there would be another big vertical drop and more passages, before they reached a narrow gateway on to the mountainside, the cave’s Top Entrance.
Over the following two days, the operation was massive. It involved members from eight regional cave rescue groups called in to help their Welsh counterparts. There were 254 underground workers working in six-hour shifts including ten doctors.
Many others were available to support the members of the clubhouse and provide hot meals.
Cave Link was a huge help, said Gary Smith, surface controller. This new technology allows for text messages to be transmitted through hundreds of feet solid rock so rescuers at the surface can always know where the rescuers have been.
Linnane previously spoke to The Mail Sunday to say that being taken to the stretcher was the most painful moment.
‘They splinted my leg and asked me if I’d like some morphine. They gave me a couple of intramuscular shots but it wasn’t powerful enough and the pain was still coming in waves,’ he said.
‘I was getting pretty cold. My temperature was slowly falling and my vital signs did tank at one stage – my pulse shot up from 70 to 140 and I felt I couldn’t breathe. The doctors started to provide oxygen, and my condition began to improve. I was receiving what my body needed.
Gary Evans, an emergency services liaison officer commented on the situation of the rescue caver and said that the man was doing’remarkably well’ given how long he had spent in the cave.
Rescue is more difficult due to the length of caves as well as the presence of underground rivers. (Photo: Rescuers at the Cave Entrance)
Natural Resources Wales states that the South Wales Caving Club found Ogof FfynnonDdu in 1946. Pictured here is are the South & Mid Wales Cave Rescue Team in the caves on a training exercise
The picture shows both the cave’s entrance and exit holes, which rescuers use to help a fallen man while caving
Finally, they reached a cave known as Big Shacks. He was warmed by electric packs as rescuers helped him.
He was stopped by Dr Brendan Sloan at Pinderfield hospital, Wakefield. Also, he was given more powerful morphine.
‘That woke me up because my body came out of shock,’ Mr Linnane said. ‘I was more conscious and I started to fight a bit more.’
As Mr Linnane was warming up, others rescuers were setting up ropes that would allow the stretcher to pass the many cave obstacles.
Knowing that it was difficult to cross the river, they put on a waterproof skirt to enable the stretcher to float. Many of the streams tunnel pools are just below the chest.
His spirits were high. He was friends with many of his rescuers. The stretcher was fastened to his body and he began to feel uncomfortable.
The rescuers finally got him to Salubrious Passage which is an open tunnel.
Eventually, he said, ‘I could smell the outside world, the scent of rain and leaves. I was passed through the entrance gate and into a waiting Land Rover’.
A honor guard of rescuers stood standing clapping when he emerged.
He had his jaw and leg rebuilt at Cardiff’s hospital. He has now recovered from a severe infection of his spleen.