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American Caving Accidents October 2011, Part 2 NSS News American Caving Accidents 1 2009-2010NSS News – American Caving Accidents – October 2011 Part 2 National Speleological Society Accident/Incident Report Form Date of Accident or Incident: ___________________________ Day of Week: _________ Time: ____________________ Cave: ___________________________________________ State: _____________________ Country: __________________ Reported by: Name _____________________________________________________ Telephone _______________________________ Address ____________________________________________________ Email ___________________________________ City __________________________________ State ________________ Country _____________ Postal Code __________ Name(s) of Person(s) Involved Age Sex Experience Affiliation Injuries or Comments Describe the accident as completely as possible on the back of this form or on a separate sheet. If possible, obtain information from those involved. Use additional sheets if necessary. A report in the style of American Caving Accidents is ideal. The following checklist is suggested as a guide for information to be included. You can also report accidents on the Internet at www.caves.org/pub/aca. The Accident/Incident ( ) Names and ages of persons involved. ( ) Events leading to accident/incident. ( ) Location (include state and county) and conditions in cave. ( ) Description of how the accident/incident occurred. ( ) Nature of injuries sustained. ( ) Analysis of main cause. ( ) Contributory causes (physical condition of caver, weather, equipment, clothing, etc.). ( ) What might have been done to prevent the accident? Rescue or Response ( ) Actions taken following the accident/incident. ( ) Persons or organizations contacted for help. ( ) Details of rescue procedures. Further details were reported in (please list name and date of publication or source, and attach copies if possible): Newspapers ___________________________________________________________________________________________ Grotto Newsletter ______________________________________________________________________________________ Other (web site, television or radio station, etc.) ______________________________________________________________ Please return the completed report to the NSS National Speleological Society as soon as possible after the accident. 2813 Cave Avenue Huntsville AL 35810-4431 1 NSS News – American Caving Accidents – October 2011 Part 2 American Caving Accidents NSS News 2009-2010 Editor American Caving Accidents Ray Keeler October 2011 Volume 69, Number 10, Part 2 26406 N. 43 rd Avenue Phoenix, AZ 85083 Features [email protected] Caver Input and American Caving Accidents ....................................... 2 ACA 2009-2010 An Overview of the 2009 and 2010 Incidents ........................................ 2 Review Committee: Caving Accident and Incident Statistics, 1986 – 2010 ........................... 7 Andy Armstrong Bonny Armstrong Previously Unreported Aaron Bird Caving Accident and Incident Reports ............................................. 11 George Dasher 2009 Caving Accident and Incident Reports ........................................ 12 Yvonne Droms 2010 Caving Accident and Incident Reports ........................................ 19 Mark Minton Rene Ohms 2009 Cave Diving Accident and Incident Reports ............................... 26 Bill Putnam 2010 Cave Diving Accident and Incident Reports ............................... 27 Forrest Wilson 2009 Caving-related Accident and Incident Reports ............................ 28 Deadline: The NSS News is distributed the last week of the month preceding the date of 2010 Caving-related Accident and Incident Reports ............................ 29 publication. Advertisements, articles, and announcements should be sent to the NSS The National Cave Rescue Commission............................................... 33 News, P.O. Box 879, Angels Camp, CA 95222 by the 15th of the month, six weeks before the month of issue (for example, material for March should be submitted by January 15). The NSS News (ISSN-0027-7010) is published monthly, with the Members Manual and American Caving Accidents published as additional issues by the National Speleological Society Inc., 2813 Cave Ave., Huntsville AL, 35810-4431. Periodicals Postage Paid at Huntsville, AL and additional mailing offices. Contributing Authors and Photographers: Tel: (256) 852-1300 Andy Armstrong Mike Bennett Fax: (256) 851-9241 Email: [email protected] Bonny Armstrong Jansen Cardy www.caves.org Regular membership in the NSS is $40 per year. Rene Ohms Luca Chiarabini Subscriptions to the NSS News are $27 per year; individual copies are $3.00 each. Copies Forrest Wilson of American Caving Accidents are also available from the NSS Bookstore for $5.00 plus postage. Contact the Huntsville office for Front Cover membership applications, subscriptions, orders, or for replacement of issues missing or damaged Thunder Canyon Cave – looking up from below. Brent Colvin has in the mail. been stuck for for almost 12 hours. Brent’s feet are visible below the Copyright 2011 San Bernardino Cave Rescue Team member as they try to raise him. by the National Speleological Back Cover Society Inc. All rights reserved. No portion of this Thunder Canyon Cave – Brent Colvin (left) after being freed. He had publication may be reproduced been stuck for over 12 hours. without the written permission of the National Speleological Society. Postmaster: Send address changes to National Speleological Society 2813 Cave Ave. 1 Huntsville AL 35810-4431 NSS News – American Caving Accidents – October 2011 Part 2 Caver Input and American Caving Accident / Incidents Ray Keeler Welcome to another issue of American Caving Accidents . The intent of the publication is to inform, educate, and promote safe caving. A primary, contributing portion of this publication has caver input. After all, those people reading the ACA are part of NSS Membership and the most organized caver communications network in North Number of Incidents America. First, several of the incidents reported in this issue were summarized based on public news-media accounts when no Year Members In cidents caver input was available. Later, when the cavers involved 1986 6741 45 either sent in reports or were contacted for additional 1987 7203 48 information, the summaries were substantially corrected to more 1988 7873 49 accurately reflect the events that took place. Please, submit 1989 8514 51 incident information. The online form can be found at 1990 9028 55 http://www.caves.org/pub/aca/acaform.html. It is not enough to 1991 9777 54 assume someone else will take care of reporting the accident or 1992 10492 60 incident. Your perspective is important. 1993 11164 64 1994 11460 57 Sending an email to [email protected] goes to the ACA Editor. 1995 11836 44 Please send information you have heard. I usually write back asking with whom contact should be made for additional data. 1996 11140 43 The Cave Rescue Forum on CaveChat on the NSS web page is 1997 11470 43 also an excellent medium for better understanding the events. 1998 11685 32 1999 12098 44 CaveChat is at http://www.forums.caves.org/ 2000 11773 40 Second, please do not be embarrassed about writing up and 2001 11967 34 sending in your own incident report. We all make mistakes and 2002 12261 31 we all learn about this activity called caving. Some cavers have 2003 12264 35 told me about incidents that would be very useful to relay to the 2004 12020 23 general community, but were unenthused about actually sitting 2005 11658 26 down and writing about the event. 2006 11664 36 2007 11552 26 I have found that by taking the time to put these events onto 2008 11651 22 paper (or into the computer), I learn so much more about the sequences of events, the causes, and things that could have been 2009 11588 20 done to better the outcome. 2010 11044 25 During the 2009–2010 period there were three heart-wrenching incidents where cavers became stuck. In two of the three Only incidents resulting in aid, injury, or fatality are incidents, the cavers escaped with their lives. In the third included. Membership figures include all classes of incident, rescuers were unable to get the man free. Please, if you membership. are going into tight passage, know your limits, talk with your team, and make good decisions. An Overview of the 2009 and 2010 Incidents American Caving Accidents (ACA) is the journal of record for clothing or hair caught in the rappel device, jammed rappel caving accidents and safety incidents in North America. This safety, or simply becoming unable to ascend or descend. Our issue contains reports for incidents that occurred in 2009 and intent is to better describe these situations, which might 2010. Following the custom of previous issues, the reports have otherwise be lumped under “stuck,” “trapped and/or stranded,” been separated into two general categories: regular caving and or perhaps “equipment problem.” cave diving. These two categories were further classified by In reporting the number of incidents versus NSS membership result or outcome and by causes and contributing factors. The totals, only caving incidents involving fatalities, injury, or aid cave-diving incidents are grouped separately, and an overview is were included. The reader should also be aware that the presented at the end of this section. members of the National Speleological Society constitute only a Since 1994, we have used the category “difficulty on rope” to portion of the population of active cavers.
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