Without a doubt, the caving trip that did kill off all remaining desire to keep going underground occurred in late November 1996. I was getting ready to fly to Patagonia to participate in a climbing expedition with some climbing friends when I took a phone call from an acquaintance in Scotland, asking if I would take him and some of his friends caving for a day. I pointed out that I was getting ready for a long climbing trip but he kept up his persistence because as I found out after the incident, he had already promised his group of friends that he would get me to take them down a cave system for a day at the weekend.
However, despite my reluctance to agree, and, against my better judgment at that time, I said yes as I had all but finished my packing and everything else had been done. I reasoned to myself that it would be good to go underground again as I had not done so for several months. I chose to take them down Calf Holes (Penyghent & Malham Caving Guide Vol two) and do the through trip to exit out of Browgill Cave and that taking them down the Hainsworth’s Passage would be an adventure for them.
There were five in the group, three of whom had little experience and two who had plenty of experience but not in North Yorkshire. I knew the trip was well within the capabilities of the group and that it could be extended by getting them to go down stream to take some photographs of the formations at the end of Calf Holes where it sumps.
There had been some rain the previous day but it was not much to worry about. We arrived at the farm, paid our entry fees and got ready. I decided to use my small FX2 battery on a belt rather than my carbide lamp. Arriving at the pot entrance, we could see that whilst there was some fast flowing water in the stream, it was not very deep and would pose no problems. I decided to rig up a ladder with a life line and after going over the usual safety tips, they each laddered down in turn. I had already suggested that they go downstream to take some photographs whilst I abseil down and wait for them at the bottom of the ladder for their return.
Off they went down stream, out of sight and out of hearing. I busied myself with de-rigging most of the gear but had decided to leave the ladder in situ just in case we had any difficulty with Hainsworth’s Passage*, a hole in the floor up stream which led after some blind downwards contortions into Browgill cave system.
* Guide book description: In the left wall beyond water sink is Hainsworth’s Passage, leading through a contortion into Browgill Cave at roof level in a small chamber just off the stream-way.
Once I felt I was ready to descend the pot, I rigged up my abseiling rack which has five bars, three of which face one way and two face the opposite way. The abseil rope has to be threaded the right way, if not, they pull open the metal bars and the rope just slips through, fast.
I can only surmise that the thought of Patagonia was uppermost in my mind that day as I had been caving and potholing for many years and have always been conscientious about making sure my gear is used correctly. However, this day was not one of those occasions. I had in fact put the rope through the bars the wrong way so that as I sat on the edge of the pot hole and swung out into the middle of the hole to lower myself down on the rack, the bars shot open and I fell to the bottom of the 50 foot pitch at 32 feet per second per second. No time to do anything but instinctively grab the rope to slow the rapid descent. Sods law was in abundance that day as I had not bothered to put my caving gloves on so the end result was rope burns across both palms of my hands. However, this pain soon dissipated when I hit the bottom, literally!
It was unfortunate, or just sods law at work yet again, that whilst moving around in setting up the ladder for the others, the FX2 battery had slid along the belt until it was sitting squarely over my coccyx, the tail bone of the spine. Again, unfortunately, the place where I landed was strewn with large boulders which were sitting in the stream. The end result was that I landed flat on my back on the biggest boulder there, with the battery between my coccyx and the boulder. Something had to give and my coccyx lost.
The pain shot down my legs at such a pace that I immediately thought I had broken my back which is when fear really set in. I tried to move my legs but felt nothing. It was suddenly apparent that I was lying in the middle of the stream with my head facing upstream which allowed a rush of very cold water to enter my clothes at the neck, travelling across my body exiting out of my trouser legs into my boots. Normally I wear a wet suit which under such circumstances would have gone some way to keeping me warmer than I was feeling. Instead I was wearing a dry suit, which consisted of a full length one piece fiber pile with a water proof over-suit.
Normally this would have sufficed in keeping the body warm when participating in ordinary caving activities, but was not made with lying prone in a fast flowing stream in winter in mind.
I lay in the water with my back lying on top of the boulder at such an angle that it prevented me from being swept away into the cave entrance itself where the others had gone earlier. At least I had little fear of being swept away to drown under the rock face where the water disappeared below to join some other subterranean stream way a few feet further on down-stream .
After what seemed a very long time, my body started to convulse uncontrollably which added to the already present level of fear brought on by thinking that I may have broken my back. I tried to rationalize whether this violent shaking and trembling was due to shock or worse, from the onset of hypothermia. Either way, things did not look too good for me.
Time can be one of those things that flashes past so fast that you wonder where it went and yet at other times, it can creep by so slowly that you cry out for it to speed up. This was one of those times when I pleaded with my God, any God to make time go faster and get the others back to my position so they could lend some assistance, how I had no idea, in fact I could not care less what they could or could not do for me I just needed someone to be there even if it was to keep me company as I drew my last breath as I suddenly had a fear of dying all alone.
But prayers like time, does not always respond or react the way you want it to and so I cursed, first internally inside my head, then verbally and then in a loud tirade directed at everybody and everything. I cursed my-self for allowing myself to agree to come caving when I really did not want to. Then I cursed the bloody cave system, followed by the damn battery still digging into the small of my back, and then I screamed abuse at my own stupidity. Suddenly this was interrupted by my thought processes as I recalled the cursing of the battery. If I could feel the damn thing digging into my back, surely then my back could not be broken, could it! I rationalized it so much that I began to calm down in the belief that this was in reality the truth and that the reason I could not feel my legs, was in fact due to the intense cold they were experiencing.
As I waited and waited, the trembling and shaking returned and this time with a vengeance, so much so, that I thought I was going to break my teeth or jaw as they clattered together. I could feel nothing below my waist at all and my arms were beginning to get pins and needles which again brought on the anxiety and fear that I had done something serious to my back or neck. The earlier held belief that feeling the battery digging into my back was a good sign was quickly evaporating into abject fear like an ice cube swimming in a thermal spring.
I again became angry at myself for allowing such a stupid thing to happen and berated myself for not checking before I swung out into space to abseil down the pot. I thought not of Patagonia but of Sandy and what feelings and emotions she would experience when she got the phone call. I again berated myself for putting her in this position. She did not deserve it nor did my three children or my mother.
But lying there unable to move in any direction including sitting up, all I could do was shout out in the hope the others would return faster but I knew that my voice was lost amid the crashing and roaring of the waterfall that fell down the pot right beside the cave entrance where I lay.
My feeble efforts at shouting suddenly stopped when I opened my mouth to shout once more and my whole body shook and trembled so much that I got a fright stunning me into total numbness. I really believed that this time, death was finally upon me.
I decided to relax and allow life or death to do what it wanted to do. No more fighting. I was too tired to fight the good fight anymore. I closed my eyes and decided that my body could not take much more of this shaking and trembling so made my peace with Sandy, with my mother, with my children, with myself and finally with my God and allowed myself to drift off into unconsciousness where I knew hypothermia would remove the pain and uncertainty for all of eternity.
Everything went quiet. My head was empty. The cold became warm and that old familiar feeling of being at eternal peace was once again permeating through my body and mind. All sensation and pain vanished. Just close your eyes I told myself and let go. I knew once again, that there was nothing to be scared of in dying and that I would once again become aware of all the answers to every question in the entire universe. This pleased me to such a degree that the very thought of death became something to look forward to, something I was happy to welcome without any regrets.
I jumped as something invaded my tranquil and peaceful moment, someone was calling my name. I lifted my head and a sudden rush of cold water splashed over my face and down the inside of my clothes which shocked me back to reality. I looked around me but there was no one there, just me and the cold rushing water.
I became angry at the thought that perhaps my brain was playing tricks on me so I closed my eyes again and suddenly saw a light above me. The thought rushed into my brain just as the water was rushing over my cold and almost lifeless body, somebody was at the top of the cave looking down. Rescue. I would be saved. But my eyes were closed and I did not have the energy to open them so how could this be.
Just in case it was not a mirage, my mouth opened and I managed to call out, “hello, help me” but the words fell on stony silence. No answer was forthcoming. Then I heard a voice to my left calling me by my name. I turned my head and forced my tired cold eyes to open but saw no one. Then a voice on my right side called my name so I turned to see who it was but again there was no one there. I made one last effort to shout at the top of my voice and within seconds, the others appeared from out for the blackness of the cave system they had been exploring. I sighed with relief, I was really going to get another reprieve. I felt smug at cheating death yet again but at the same time, felt sorry for what I was about to put the others through.
They knew instantly that I had fallen. They rigged up a pulley system and they miraculously hauled me slowly back up the cavern until I was at the spot where I fell from. The water that drained out of my caving suit as they were hauling me up helped reduce the weight they were trying to haul so that it did not exacerbate any injuries.
However, when they tried to move me sideways to rest on the rock beside the pot entrance, the pain was so intense that I blacked out for a while and when I came to, I was being carried to the mini bus at the end of the drive. Someone ran off to the farm to call for an ambulance.
I lay wrapped in several sleeping bags inside the warm womb that was the mini bus and drifted in and out of consciousness. I pleaded and begged the pain searing through my upper body to make its way down to both my legs and out of my boots but it resolutely refused causing waves of pulsating pain as it raced around my body like a headless chicken gasping for its last life’s breath as it ran towards the inevitable. Like the headless chicken, I accepted that death could be inevitable if I wanted it to be, all I had to do was will it just one last time.
Memories flowed endlessly over me and through me in a crescendo of emotions and feelings, all of them positive and gladly welcomed. My childhood came and went with the blink of an eye as did my adolescent years which were so painful if the truth be known.
Numbness was everywhere. I heard the others talking outside as I drifted on waves of euphoria brought on by the seesaw movement of consciousness and heard the words ‘broken back’.
Just before I succumbed to one wave of unconsciousness, I felt someone cuddle me and whisper in my ear. I was unable to make out what was being said but as I knew everyone was outside the mini bus waiting for the ambulance, it didn’t really matter as I rationalized that it was just my imagination playing tricks in order to cope with the shock that was running in spasms through my entire body. I heard a siren in the distant as the ambulance rushed to my aid, then I heard someone say in my ear, ‘not yet Frankie’, then sweet wonderful silence enclosed me in a cocoon of love and that familiar loving darkness entered my every pore in a gently flowing ebb until I remembered nothing more.
When I opened my eyes again I found myself lying on a hospital stretcher with some nurses cutting off my soggy caving gear. Chattering voices – x-ray, get his boots off, careful with his back, neck brace, one two three lift and I floated across from one stretcher to another and blackness engulfed me once again.
I gently felt myself rocking side wards and then a voice saying, ‘how are you feeling’ which rudely and abruptly brought me to my senses. The pain killing injection was wearing off. I lay crying internally as the pain spread through my aching body. I just wanted to be dead so closed my eyes and wished for death in whatever form, to come and put an end to my endless suffering. Nothing. Blackness. Intermittent noises. I ached for release from the pain. I opened my eyes to find darkness and was pleased. I had made it. Then a glaring light piercing my eyes. “Shit, hell really does exist” was my response. “No, not hell young man, ward 7 in fact”.
The searing light vanished when the doctor turned off his little light he was shining into my eyes. He said I would be fine but I knew he was lying as the pain was telling me something different.
Later that day, when all the drugs had worn off I was able to take stock of my environment and situation although it took some persuading from one of the nurses to tell me what damage I had done. The coccyx was crushed and bent to one side, the cause of the pulsating pain. One previously broken rib again broken and some extensive bruising to the lower back and upper thighs otherwise I would be up and walking in several months.
Now you’d think I would have been glad to hear such good news but my selfish side just complained that I would not be well enough in time to still be able to go to Patagonia, or would I!
Reality was not so pleasant. Despite my naive yet stubborn insistence that I would be up and about in time to get the flight to Patagonia, I did in fact spend the whole of Christmas lying in hospital being prodded and poked by a string of doctors, nurses and physiotherapists. The coccyx is still crushed and bent to one side which still gives me pins and needles when I sit on it for too long. The rib has mended, again and the bruising lasted for several weeks. Patagonia? No, never made it but there’s always another year!
The question to be asked is, was the caving trip worth it? I have never regretted participating in any adventurous activity but on this occasion, I did regret not saying no when I was asked initially to lead the group underground before flying out to Patagonia. Whilst my body undoubtedly took some punishment, my intellectual development and understanding of who I am, what I am and what life means in every sense, has I believe, benefited from this experience.
In addition, much of what I wanted to believe in with regards death, dying, souls and spiritual humanness was during that incident, ratified within my own understanding of what occurred. I felt a little better in knowing that what we experience or what we think we experience may well be from that part of the brain we never use and given that it is around 80-90% for the average person, it is gratifying to know that we may, as human beings, be capable of many things we general just dream about.