Freaked out by breakdown?

[BrianFrank]

http://www.cavediver.net/forum/showthread.php/10758-The-Lost-Sea-Sweetwater-TN
http://cavediveflorida.com/Lost_Sea.htm

Thanks for the links. Wow! Found the second article very interesting. Shows that the lake could go on for thousands of feet in different directions. With re-breathers it sounds like they could make some amazing finds. I hope the owners let them push it in the future.

The boulder falling from the ceiling is scary and now we know was true.

.

[BrianC]

That was some good reading!
I have been through so much scary breakdown but one cave gets me worse than any, Owen spring cave, and the water makes it so much worse. One occasion on my way out from the left waterfall room, the room where you go under a wall with about six inches of clearance, some rocks started falling on my back and that was the last trip to that side.I have seen the waterfall, and that was the end of that side anyway. The right side has a four hundred feet of very quiet swimming and it is very narrow averaging about ten feet width and water up to about ten feet deep ceiling about three to five feet, with lots of breakdown wedged all along the side through the passage. Scary to say the least, but absolutely one of my all time favorite caves.

[Squirrel Girl]

I'm not generally freaked out by breakdown,but the one site that got to me was the fractured rock in Huautla. It was near the entrance (relatively speaking!). And I was told, "don't touch the rock with the crack in it." There was no way I could pass without touching it (as lightly as I could manage in the chimney-esque squeezey climb). Since I'm here today to type this, it obviously didn't squish me like a bug. Actually, it probably wouldn't have squished me like a bug, just painfully pinned me until I croaked.

[paul]

I'm not generally freaked out by breakdown,but the one site that got to me was the fractured rock in Huautla. It was near the entrance (relatively speaking!). And I was told, "don't touch the rock with the crack in it." There was no way I could pass without touching it (as lightly as I could manage in the chimney-esque squeezey climb). Since I'm here today to type this, it obviously didn't squish me like a bug. Actually, it probably wouldn't have squished me like a bug, just painfully pinned me until I croaked.

That reminds me of an Australian caver who cam caving with us while on a trip to Ireland. He had been exploring a cave back home in Oz by himself and hadn't told anyone.

He got pinned by a fallen rock in a crawl for around 24 hours and he told me that all that time he was just about able to breathe as it was pressing on his chest.

After a search, once someone realised he was missing of course, he was relased from his trap and brough to the surface (you can probably find news items about it by googling).

To add to his misfortune, he was later presented with quite a large fine for bing in the cave as he wasn't supposed to be (I think it was a protected cave in a national park or something).

Anyway, he's obviosuly still caving and didn't seem to too concerned while we were underground in Ireland, but then we weren't in any caves with dangerous breakdowns and we had permission to be in them, so no massive fines looming on the horizon! He seemed more concerned over his "waterproof" camera leaking in water...

[muddyface]

I was at the bottom of the entrance of Roadside Pit in WV and I suddenly heard an incredibly loud boom. I never heard anything come tumbling down the ledges above, break off, or hit a wall. As soon as I heard that I had a moment of thinking I was going to die and then quickly got away from the bottom of the drop. I still have no clue what it was but I'm thinking something big just broke off the ceiling silently and fell while I wasn't looking.