An injured cave explorer was successfully pulled into daylight early Wednesday morning after a four-day rescue, multiple media outlets are reporting.
Speleologist Ottavia Piana was exploring an uncharted part of the Bueno Fonteno cave near Bergamo, Italy when a rock gave way under her feet. The 32-year-old caver fell five meters and sustained fractures to her face, knees, and ribs. She was with eight other people when the accident occurred. Rescuers were alerted to the incident on Saturday.
The charted portions of the cave network extend over 19km, and the uncharted parts are narrow, twisty, and difficult to navigate. It was a four-kilometer journey through previously unexplored terrain from the site of Piana’s accident to the surface.
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Never again
“The morphology of the cave also made it difficult, with some areas at risk of a landslide, which is also why the accident occurred, as a rock gave way beneath her feet,” Mauro Guiducci, vice-president of the Italian National Alpine and Speleological Rescue Corps (CNSAS) said in a press conference.
Responders strapped Piana to a stretcher and slowly moved her through the web of tunnels, pausing every 90 minutes to asses her condition. The group of 159 expert volunteers occasionally used small explosive charges to clear blocked passages. The rescuers also laid telephone cables across the entire route to facilitate communication.
Rescuers accelerated their efforts on Tuesday after becoming more concerned about Piana’s condition. In the end, they stepped into fresh air 12 hours earlier than expected.
“She’s speaking very little but said she would never enter a cave again,” one rescue medic told the Italian press.
Piana has many years of caving experience, but this is the second time she’s been rescued from the Bueno Fonteno system. Seventeen months ago, she was trapped for two days after breaking a leg.
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Federico Catania, another CNSAS member, told the Italian press that Piana was well-prepared for the exploration. “We don’t judge the people we help,” he said. “We just know that there is a person in difficulty, and we intervene. We can perhaps judge some inexperienced behavior, but this was not the case.”
