WEBVTT 00:00:00.400 --> 00:00:05.221 A Saturday night in October. Northern Iowa, not far from the Minnesota line. 00:00:06.021 --> 00:00:14.340 A helicopter has landed near the mouth of a cave. Around it, there are sheriff's deputies, firefighters, ambulance crews, and a crowd. 00:00:15.140 --> 00:00:19.981 Underground, a teenager is wedged in a crack in the rock. He has been there since the morning. 00:00:20.781 --> 00:00:25.027 The rescuers have tried an industrial hammer drill. They have tried a hydraulic pump. 00:00:25.827 --> 00:00:26.731 He has not moved. 00:00:28.231 --> 00:00:36.897 This is Caving Stories: true stories of cave rescue and survival. Today, Skunk Cave, Iowa, and twelve hours in a crevice. 00:00:38.397 --> 00:00:41.220 Skunk Cave is north of the town of Cresco, Iowa. 00:00:42.020 --> 00:00:52.958 On Saturday, the sixth of October, two thousand one, four people went in. A teenager from Byron, Minnesota, named Andy Wernimont. His father. And two friends. 00:00:53.758 --> 00:00:55.519 They entered the cave at ten in the morning. 00:00:56.319 --> 00:01:00.744 About an hour later, Andy was in a tight crevice. And he could not get out of it. 00:01:01.544 --> 00:01:06.193 The press account of that day uses two words for how he was stuck. Hopelessly wedged. 00:01:07.693 --> 00:01:16.693 Soon afterwards, a call to nine one one went out. It brought in authorities from Iowa, and from Minnesota, and caving organizations from both states. 00:01:17.493 --> 00:01:32.926 The list in the article is long. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. The Winona Rescue Unit. The sheriff's offices of Fillmore County, and of Winneshiek County. The Decorah Fire Department. The ambulance services of Howard and Winneshiek counties. 00:01:33.726 --> 00:01:37.065 A helicopter from Mayo Air Ambulance landed near the cave. 00:01:37.865 --> 00:01:43.743 In time, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources took control of the rescue attempt inside the cave. 00:01:45.243 --> 00:01:52.840 They had an array of rescue equipment. The article names two pieces of it: an industrial electric hammer drill, and a hydraulic pump. 00:01:53.640 --> 00:01:54.740 The boy remained stuck. 00:01:55.540 --> 00:02:01.285 The cave was at forty-eight degrees Fahrenheit. And he had been in it, wedged in the rock, for hours. 00:02:02.085 --> 00:02:05.038 The article says his condition began to fail rapidly. 00:02:05.838 --> 00:02:13.485 There was one man the authorities had already tried to call. A cave explorer named John Ackerman, the owner of the Minnesota Cave Preserve. 00:02:14.285 --> 00:02:22.601 They had tried to reach him earlier. He could not be located. He was underground himself, exploring a cave in Minnesota with a friend, David Gerboth. 00:02:24.101 --> 00:02:29.753 On Saturday evening, the message finally reached them. Ackerman and Gerboth sped to Skunk Cave. 00:02:30.553 --> 00:02:39.171 Ackerman went in carrying his own rescue gear. Among it, a battery-powered hammer drill, and small explosive charges. Tools for removing rock. 00:02:39.971 --> 00:02:40.820 He did not use them. 00:02:41.620 --> 00:02:47.631 Within minutes of reaching Andy, the article says, he pulled him free. Without removing any rock at all. 00:02:48.431 --> 00:03:00.792 Years later, a Minnesota newspaper, the Star Tribune, told it this way. For twelve hours, local and state authorities tried in vain to pull him out. Within ten minutes of Ackerman's arrival, the boy was free. 00:03:02.292 --> 00:03:09.758 At eleven fifteen that night, twelve hours after he became stuck, Andy Wernimont came up to the surface, with John Ackerman beside him. 00:03:10.558 --> 00:03:15.927 A large crowd was waiting at the entrance. The article says it broke into spontaneous applause. 00:03:17.427 --> 00:03:30.347 This story has no accident report behind it. What it has is the press. The main account is an article, reproduced on the website of Ackerman's own cave preserve. So the fullest version of this rescue comes from the rescuer's side. 00:03:31.147 --> 00:03:41.227 A second newspaper, the Post Bulletin of Rochester, Minnesota, gives about ten hours, not twelve. It adds that Andy was treated at the scene, and went home with his father. 00:03:42.027 --> 00:03:55.106 The story also circulates online as a short video, in parts. That version describes boards wedged beneath him, to keep him from slipping deeper. The articles do not mention boards. They mention the drill, and the pump. 00:03:55.906 --> 00:04:02.424 None of the sources says how Ackerman freed him. Only what he did not have to do. And the article ends with one more line. 00:04:03.924 --> 00:04:07.022 It quotes the fire chief of Cresco, Vince Hornberger. 00:04:07.822 --> 00:04:16.188 He said that another teenage boy had been trapped in the same spot, about twenty years before. And that he, too, had needed to be rescued. 00:04:19.188 --> 00:04:28.581 The sources for this episode are in the show notes. This was Caving Stories. If this one stayed with you, follow the show in your podcast app, so the next case comes to you.