WEBVTT 00:00:00.400 --> 00:00:02.078 Evening, in southern Indiana. 00:00:02.878 --> 00:00:07.146 At the mouth of a cave, there is a wall of rock that was not there that afternoon. 00:00:07.946 --> 00:00:13.279 On the outside of it: state police, firefighters, sheriff's deputies, and the neighbors. 00:00:14.079 --> 00:00:18.243 On the inside of it: two boys. Seventeen years old, both of them. 00:00:19.043 --> 00:00:20.051 And it is getting dark. 00:00:21.551 --> 00:00:35.913 This is Caving Stories: true stories of cave rescue and survival. Today, two short cases from one county: Harrison County, Indiana. A rock slide, and a passage called the Z-Bend. Nobody dies in this episode. 00:00:37.413 --> 00:00:46.093 The first case comes from the accident reports of the National Speleological Society, for nineteen seventy-five. The whole entry is one paragraph long. 00:00:46.893 --> 00:00:56.553 The report does not name the cave. It says only: a cave near Ramsey. It is not even sure of the year. It prints nineteen seventy-five, with a question mark. 00:00:57.353 --> 00:01:05.789 Three teenagers went in, at around half past four in the afternoon. Roger, who was eighteen. Perry, and Robert, who were seventeen. 00:01:06.589 --> 00:01:09.434 About two and a half hours later, they were on their way out. 00:01:10.934 --> 00:01:13.089 At the entrance, a rock slide started. 00:01:13.889 --> 00:01:16.982 Roger was able to get out, before the main slide came down. 00:01:17.782 --> 00:01:21.452 Perry and Robert were not. The slide trapped them in the entrance. 00:01:22.252 --> 00:01:27.181 Roger tried to move the rocks. They were large, and he could not. So he went for help. 00:01:28.681 --> 00:01:30.229 The report lists who answered. 00:01:31.029 --> 00:01:42.421 The State Police. Ohio Valley Rescue officials. The Ramsey Volunteer Fire Department. Deputies of the Harrison County sheriff. And, in the report's words, numerous local residents. 00:01:43.221 --> 00:01:48.202 The slide had come down at about seven in the evening. They worked at the wall of rock from the outside. 00:01:49.002 --> 00:01:52.296 By ten o'clock that night, the rescue workers had pierced the wall. 00:01:53.096 --> 00:01:55.795 And the two boys crawled to safety. Unharmed. 00:01:57.295 --> 00:01:58.818 It had taken about three hours. 00:01:59.618 --> 00:02:07.800 The report adds a short analysis. The police were unable to confirm whether Roger might have started the slide himself, by grabbing loose rocks. 00:02:08.600 --> 00:02:14.166 And then one flat sentence. In any event, not enough care was taken in an unsafe area. 00:02:14.966 --> 00:02:20.582 The report's own source was a clipping from a local newspaper, the Evening News of Jeffersonville, Indiana. 00:02:21.382 --> 00:02:29.403 An online version of this story moves it to West Virginia, and makes it five and a half hours. The record says Indiana. And about three. 00:02:30.903 --> 00:02:34.051 The second case is in the same county, eleven years later. 00:02:34.851 --> 00:02:38.181 Parker's Pit Cave has a passage that cavers call the Z-Bend. 00:02:38.981 --> 00:02:43.631 On the twenty-fifth of January, nineteen eighty-six, four cavers were in the cave. 00:02:44.431 --> 00:02:51.201 The first thing that went wrong on that trip was not in the Z-Bend at all. It was at a twenty-two foot pit, called the Upper Bound. 00:02:52.701 --> 00:02:59.015 Two of the four had already gone down the rope. Then the third came down. The report's word for it is: whoosh. 00:02:59.815 --> 00:03:00.872 He crashed to the floor. 00:03:01.672 --> 00:03:11.370 He was using a brake made of a carabiner and a bar. The rope has to pass through the carabiner, over the bar, and back down through the carabiner. He had left out the last step. 00:03:12.170 --> 00:03:14.696 He was not injured. And he continued with the trip. 00:03:16.196 --> 00:03:20.082 Then, on the same trip, a caver became stuck in the Z-Bend. 00:03:20.882 --> 00:03:27.399 The report gives that one sentence. The caver had to be helped through, by the cavers ahead, and the cavers behind. 00:03:28.199 --> 00:03:31.798 That was all. No rescue team was called. No one was hurt. 00:03:32.598 --> 00:03:40.371 The report files the whole day among its lesser reports, under a code that means exactly that: no injury, and no outside aid. 00:03:41.871 --> 00:03:47.979 The Z-Bend has a darker reputation online. Videos call it a death trap, and tell of a tragedy there. 00:03:48.779 --> 00:03:59.190 The makers of this show went through the Society's accident reports for nineteen eighty-six through nineteen ninety-three. There is no death in the Z-Bend in any of them. And none in Parker's Pit. 00:03:59.990 --> 00:04:10.107 What the record holds is this. One man who forgot a step on a rope, and walked away. And one caver who stuck in a bend, and was helped through it by the cavers ahead and behind. 00:04:10.907 --> 00:04:17.918 Two cases from one county. In one, a whole community came to open a wall. In the other, nobody had to come at all. 00:04:20.918 --> 00:04:30.310 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.