FORTY
WITH KABANIKHIN SECURED IN THE 500-METER Camp, discussions began about how to conduct the rescue. Cave rescues are always difficult. For a variety of reasons, this one would be horrific. Sergio García-Dils was the only trained search-and-rescue expert on the whole team. In addition, those who would have to perform the rescue were already worn out from weeks of grueling labor. They had not brought with them even basic rescue tools: a litter, pulleys, winches, and other hardware. Everything would have to be accomplished from within Abkhazia, a region that was unknown to most of the world and that was suffering shortages of just about everything. And as if all that were not enough, every discussion, decision, and movement was further complicated because cavers from seven countries were present and many spoke only their own native language. Finally, while the flooding had eased, the waters were still not down to their prestorm levels, and the essential telephone communication system had not yet been repaired.
Shortly before noon, the team decided that the experienced French caver Bernard Tourte would remain with Kabanikhin while Sergio García-Dils sprint-climbed to the surface to organize a rescue. The Spaniard arrived on top at 1:00 P.M., only to learn that the telephone system had been repaired and news of the accident had preceded him. Regardless, given his experience in search and rescue, García-Dils became the “incident commander.”
The closest possible source of rescue equipment was the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations in Sochi. Requesting help from Georgia-hating Russians might be asking for trouble, but what could they do? That afternoon, the expedition contacted the Russians in Sochi and formally sought assistance. Meanwhile, García-Dils canvassed the base camp, gathering every tool that might be of use during the rescue. He also delegated a team to start making explosive charges to enlarge tight squeezes for a litter’s passage.
The Russians promised to send a helicopter with equipment, supplies, and more people. That evening García-Dils gave a crash course in cave-rescue techniques to those in the group who had never participated in one. Extricating Kabanikhin through so much vertical terrain was going to be complicated by the weight of the loaded litter, the convoluted passages, and the difficulty of creating complex anchored pulley systems, among other impediments. At some points, applying the same principle used in elevators, human “counterweights” would be required to raise the litter. At others, it would have to be pushed and pulled through meanders big enough to admit it but not large enough to stand in. A purpose-built system for this kind of thing, called a confined space rescue system, includes dozens of specialized devices and costs more than $5,000. This rescue would have to be accomplished with six well-used pulleys García-Dils had managed to scrounge during his campwide search, unless the Russians brought better gear—but when did Russians ever have better gear?
At three the next morning, the cavalry choppered in: eleven fresh bodies, medical supplies, and a litter. It was not what the cavers had been hoping for. Cave-rescue litters are made from tough, thick plastic that retains some flexibility, allowing the litter to be strapped around the victim like a cocoon. They are also light, weighing only ten to fifteen pounds. The Russians had brought a litter designed for helicopter rescues, a rigid, fifty-pound metal basket. Riggers had spent the rest of the night putting special anchors in place, and shortly before noon a rescue team started down with the litter.
While so much had been transpiring on the surface, others had been working feverishly in the cave to enlarge passages. The Mozambique Meander, for example, was several hundred feet long and averaged about 2 feet wide. Most people had to turn sideways to navigate it. By 12:30 P.M., workers had hammered and blasted enough openings that cavers could wrestle the empty litter through, though to pass several places it had to be disassembled into two halves. Four hours later, the litter arrived at the 500-Meter Camp, where Kabanikhin had been languishing, his suffering eased by injections of tramadol, a powerful narcotic-like analgesic.
It took three hours to stabilize Kabanikhin and secure him in the litter. The load totaled almost 250 pounds. At about 7:00 P.M., he was lifted from the floor of the 500-Meter Camp and began the long, hard trip to the light. Rescuers hoisted the litter up through the deep shafts and wrestled it through squeeze after squeeze. By 1:30 A.M. on August 25, they reached a prearranged bivouac spot, about halfway to the surface. There, rescuers and victim rested while others kept working to widen one of the worst passages of all, a vertical section that rose from 250 feet deep to about 160 feet. A rugged Ukrainian named Alexey Karpechenko—nicknamed “Brick” because of his toughness—and his partner, Nikoley Solovyev, had been working almost nonstop in this section. It took 120 explosive charges and a gasoline-powered jackhammer to get the job done.
At 7:30 P.M. on August 25, rescuers resumed hauling the litter up; the work continued into the next morning. At 4:00 A.M. on August 26, sixty-four hours after his accident, Alexander Kabanikhin emerged, Lazarus-like, from the mouth of Krubera into fresh air he must surely have thought he would never breathe again.
KABANIKHIN WAS SUCCESSFULLY EVACUATED AND SPENT many weeks in the hospital. Amazingly, he suffered no lasting impairments from the catastrophic accident that could so easily have ended his life.
The accident was more than enough to end the 2003 exploration of Krubera, which, as Klimchouk had feared, had brought tragedy without producing any triumph. For all their hard work, the explorers had not succeeded in going deeper in than 5,609 feet, Krubera’s known depth at the expedition’s beginning. Alexander Klimchouk knew that cavers just as skilled and determined as his teams were working elsewhere, and he was particularly cognizant of the work being done in Mexico by Bill Stone and the United States Deep Caving Team.
Stone had never hesitated to proclaim to the world that Cheve had a proven, dye-traced potential to be at least 2,500 meters (8,202 feet) deep and that he, Bill Stone, would penetrate to that depth, even if it meant spending more than a month underground and diving far enough to effectively separate from the main expedition. Klimchouk had met Stone several times during visits to the States and had been impressed by the force of his personality and the magnitude of his accomplishments. Klimchouk knew that Stone had been on almost fifty Mexican expeditions and that he was brilliant, experienced, and driven. He knew that the National Geographic Society was one of Stone’s sponsors, and if there was one thing you could say about that organization’s executives, it was that they did not back losers. If anyone, anywhere, other than Klimchouk’s teams was likely to make a major breakthrough in a supercave, the odds were with Bill Stone in Mexico. Klimchouk knew that Stone, with ample sponsor support, legions of expert explorers, the most advanced diving technology, and white-hot ambition, planned a return to Cheve in 2004.
You could interchange “Stone” and “Klimchouk” often in the paragraph above and produce an accurate picture of the American caver’s view half a world away. Stone knew that Krubera, like Cheve, had the dye-trace-proven potential to go at least 8,000 feet deep. He knew that Klimchouk, like himself, was a dedicated, mission-focused scientist with tremendous resources who would not spend a minute in Arabika unless he saw ultimate potential there. Klimchouk had at his disposal even more, and more disciplined, expert cavers, many of whom had been exploring the depths since early childhood. Stone’s sponsor, the National Geographic Society, would be supporting an all-out effort by Klimchouk’s Ukrainian Speleological Association the next year. This gave the already ultramotivated Stone more incentive, if any were needed, to make his own all-out attempt in Mexico in 2004.
Thus the stage was finally set for an epic race not just to find the deepest cave on earth but also to make the last great terrestrial discovery. Nothing like it had been seen since 1911–12, when Amundsen and Scott had raced across the barren Antarctic wastes toward the South Pole.
Now 2004, it appeared, could well be that same kind of year.