Rescuers yesterday pulled an American researcher out of a Turkish cave, more than a week after he became seriously ill 1,000m below its entrance, officials said.
Teams from across Europe had rushed to Morca cave in southern Turkey’s Taurus Mountains to aid Mark Dickey, a 40-year-old experienced caver who became seriously ill on Sept. 2 with stomach bleeding. He was on an expedition to map the cave, which is the third-deepest in the nation.
Dickey was too frail to climb out himself, so rescuers carried him with the help of a stretcher, making frequent stops at temporary camps set up along the way before he finally reached the surface early yesterday.
Photo: Reuters
“Mark Dickey is out of the Morca cave,” a statement from the Speleological Federation of Turkey said.
It said that Dickey was removed from the last exit of the cave at 12:37am yesterday morning.
“He is fine and is being tended to by emergency medical workers in the encampment above,” the statement said.
Lying on a stretcher surrounded by reporters following his rescue, Dickey described the ordeal as a “crazy, crazy adventure.”
“It is amazing to be above ground again,” he said, thanking the Turkish government for saving his life with its rapid response. He also thanked the international caving community, Turkish cavers and Hungarian Cave Rescue, among others.
The American was first treated inside the cave by a Hungarian doctor who went down the cave on Sept. 3. Doctors and rescuers then took turns caring for him.
The cause of Dickey’s illness was not clear.
Dickey yesterday said that in the cave he had started to throw up large quantities of blood.
“My consciousness started to get harder to hold on to, and I reached the point where I thought: ‘I’m not going to live,’” he told reporters.
The biggest challenges for the rescuers getting him out of the cave were the steep vertical sections, and navigating through mud and water at low temperatures in the horizontal sections. There was also the psychological toll of staying inside a dark, damp cave for extended periods of time.
About 190 experts from Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Turkey took part in the rescue, including doctors, paramedics and experienced cavers. Teams comprised of a doctor and three to four other rescuers took turns staying by his side at all times.
The rescue began on Saturday after doctors, who administered IV fluids and blood, determined that Dickey could make the arduous ascent.
Before the evacuation could begin, rescuers first had to widen some of the cave’s narrow passages, install ropes to pull him up vertical shafts on a stretcher and set up temporary camps along the way.
Dickey, who is from Croton-on-Hudson, New York, is a well-known cave researcher and a cave rescuer himself, who had participated in many international expeditions.
He and several other people on the expedition were mapping the 1,276m deep Morca cave system for the Anatolian Speleology Group Association.
Dickey became ill on Sept. 2, but it took until the next morning to notify people above ground.
Turkish authorities made a video message available that showed Dickey standing and moving around on Thursday last week. While alert and talking, he said he was not “healed on the inside” and needed a lot of help to get out of the cave.
After his rescue, the head of the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency, Okay Memis, told a news conference that the health of Dickey was “very good.”
The European Cave Rescue Association said many cave rescuers remained in the cave to remove rope and rescue equipment used during the operation.
The association expressed its “huge gratitude to the many cave rescuers from seven different countries who contributed to the success of this cave rescue operation.”
“The fact that our son, Mark Dickey, has been moved out of Morca Cave in stable condition is indescribably relieving and fills us with incredible joy,” Mark Dickey’s parents, Debbie and Andy Dickey, said in a statement.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home