Search and Rescue Drill at Devil's Icebox
Saturday, September 25, 1999
Submitted by Jeff Page, NSS# 45699

This year's training began Friday evening at the park headquarters, where WCT leaders met with Jeff Scott of BCFPD. Jeff is also a long time caver. He showed us a video and slides outlining the command structure of a cave rescue and the division of responsibilities. We touched on some of the specifics of the next days' activities, but were not told the actual rescue scenario. We would know that at 8:00 AM the next day. There was to be one live "victim" and the rest dummies represented by a safety vest with a note attached describing their distress. Jeff, Scott Schulte and Roxie Campbell (both of RBM) were the only ones who knew of the "victims" particulars. They would act as observers in the cave and assess the effectiveness of the rescue. Other non participants included a reporter and photographer from the Columbia Daily Tribune.

The day began with all participants arriving by eight ready to cave. The scenario was thus described: A group of ten cavers had not come out of the cave at their expected time of midnight. They had entered about 6:00 PM with a relatively inexperienced leader. The caving abilities of the group were not known. The park was notified by a frantic parent. The park called BCFPD, WCT leaders, and grotto members.

Five teams were assembled with a mix of each group. This assured that each team had someone familiar with the cave (WCT), tried and true cavers (grotto) and an EMT (BCFPD). There was also a dedicated BCFPD team who would handle evacuation equipment with assistance from a search team. The search teams were to mark passages with two reflective markers that they were searching. If the passage was clear, they were to leave one marker on their way out. If they found a victim, the EMT was to stay with the victim and the others were to return leaving three markers. They would then backtrack to the Search Team Manager (STM) with their information.

The first half mile of the cave is a water passage which has to be traversed in canoes. The park has enough boats to accommodate the thirty-seven people involved. The first team in was called the Hasty Team. Their assignment was to blitz search the cave and return to the boat landing (850M) with information for the subsequent Red, White, Blue and Green teams.

I arrived at the boat landing with the Red team headed by Matt Buehler of Hannibal. Close behind was the White team. The Hasty team had not returned by then. Rather than just sit and wait the teams decided to split up and search some of the nearby rooms and side passages while waiting on Hasty. I stayed at the landing to inform other arrivals of our action plan. Red and White soon returned having found no one. Hasty got back to the landing with information of the lost party. They had found the leader (vest with note) at Meander Cutoff (1450M). His light had gone out and was waiting for rescue. He told Hasty that he and two others had gone up the Left Fork to the Mountain Room (LF2500). The remaining seven had continued into the main passage and he didn't know where they were. One of his party (the live "victim") suffered a critical leg injury in the Mountain Room and had an exposed femur. The leader had gone for help alone when his light went out at Meander. Hasty went to the mountain room, left their EMT with the victim, and returned to the boat landing.

By now all search teams had arrived and the team leaders gathered for a meeting with the STM. Blue was deployed to the Mountain Room with the evacuation team to remove the live victim. The other teams were deployed to the main passage, some going deep and working their way back and others fanning out in the side passages on the way. All teams understood that they were to stop searching at 2:30 and return to the boat landing.

The Red team was assigned to search side passages on the way into the main. This involved water crawls, mud crawls and climbs into domes. I thought my team performed very well and used good judgment in assessing the probabilities. We never found any victims on our search which ended at the Waterfall formation (2500M). I felt good about what we had done, but had some regret about not being involved with the evacuation of the live victim. On our way out, we learned that all remaining victims had been recovered (around Chert Bridges (3000M))and the operation was a success.

Back at Park HQ, we cleaned the boats and equipment, then gathered for a critique of the day while pizzas were ordered. All involved felt that the operation went very well. Some voiced concern that the communication was too slow using the "runner system". One asked if the NCRC could be involved on the next one. The reflective markers were criticized for being too flimsy to stick in the hard mud in some spots. Some of the EMTs pointed out that a victim with a femur injury of that nature would have most likely not survived. Scott Schulte pointed out that this was a "worst case" scenario that would probably not happen in the Ice Box. Our teams were probably larger than what would be assembled in a real case. Searching for ten people gave everyone enough to do. All groups felt that they had come away with valuable lessons and we congratulated each other for our efforts.

For my part, I developed a real appreciation for caving safety by observing what a phenomenal effort may be needed to rescue just one unfortunate caver. It's comforting to know that people are taking the time to train for this. My thanks to RBM for an exciting weekend.

Attached is the story that appeared Sunday in Columbia.

[Columbia Daily] Tribune Online News Story

Story ran on September 26, 1999

Rescuers prepare for icy chill Agencies practice for potential cave tragedy.

By CHRISTOPHER LEONARD of the Tribune's staff

Imagine search and rescue in the underworld. All the rules are changed; standard operating procedure is meaningless. Radios don't work down there, and the only light is battery powered.

Devil's Ice Box in Rock Bridge State Park is a winding underground cave chilled to 55 degrees year-round, filled in parts with running water. If a hiker gets lost there, it can take a monumental effort to reach them. Such emergencies are rare, but do happen.

"It's common enough that when it does happen, you need to be prepared," Boone County Fire District spokesman Jeff Scott said as he entered the cave yesterday. Scott paddled a canoe through chilly waters that fill the first stretch of the cave. Bats flew by his head now and then, bursting out of the darkness like tiny gobs of light, then disappearing.

Scott took part in a training exercise in Devil's Ice Box yesterday meant to hone emergency crews' ability to work in caves. Their goal was to "rescue" 10 fictional spelunkers lost in the cave. Scott has been through the tunnels many times, and not always for recreation.

"Right here is where two guys capsized. We found their canoe over there," he said, referring to a time in 1973 when two men in their 20s flipped their canoe in the Icebox and drowned.

"Their lights went out when they flipped, they didn't know up from down," he said.

Such tragedies have led the Missouri Department of Natural Resources to restrict access to the cave. Tours are only allowed from September through March, and a trained guide is required to lead the tours.

Yesterday's drill brought together members from the fire district, DNR and private spelunkers. The fire district is usually first on the scene for emergencies, but spelunkers are often called in for assistance.

"That way, they don't just run in there and not know what they're doing," spelunker Daryl Greaser said. He belongs to the Chouteau Grotto, a local caving club that meets every month. For them, being trapped in cold, muddy holes is a dream vacation. "It's what I live for, man," Greaser said. He said spelunkers' familiarity with caves is an asset during a search.

During the training exercise yesterday, the group of about 30 searchers broke into teams and went down different corridors starting at 9 a.m. Most of the "victims" were merely orange vests with a note pinned to them leading searches on to new areas.

As the day wore on and the teams penetrated deep into the cave, it became apparent why so many people are drawn to the Ice Box, why they crawl on all fours over wet gravel and squeeze through narrow passages just to see it.

Rock formations hang from the ceiling and stretch from the floors like fluid steeples of some ancient church. Crystal structures sprout up, swallowing light and glowing a mellow green in the dark.

The ceilings are covered in places with fossils from old Missouri oceans, and bats chirp in the shadows.

At one point, the group gathered around to look at a pink planarian worm, a species that has only been found in Devil's Ice Box. It lives in a world of total darkness, one that seems completely isolated. In fact, it's a world intimately connected with our own.

"See that deep brown and orange patch there?" asks Roxie Campbell from the DNR. "There must be some car or something rusting up on the surface and dripping down here. I wish we could find it.

"That's something we try to emphasize a lot, that land-use decisions up there have an effect down here," she said.

The rescue team was careful to disturb as little as possible throughout the day. They retrieved victims who were hiding in the cave pretending to be wounded.

"It was a great learning experience," park superintendent Scott Schulte said. "That's the purpose of it, to bring these groups together so we can learn lessons for the future." *

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