in this video we're going to go over three stories about cave exploring that went horrifyingly wrong today's Final story is about a terrifying freak occurrence that has never happened before or since in the history of caving I have to warn you it is intense to say the least so viewer discretion is advised [Music] in Alabama 30 minutes east of Huntsville there is a hiking trail that goes to the woods this is a fairly ordinary looking Trail it's a little bit Rocky it passes over several small Creeks but as you continue down this Trail Hills start
to rise up on either side as you continue deeper into the forest these keep growing until it's almost like you're walking into the mouth of a canyon near the end of this Trail a cliff Rises up in the distance and the trail seems to end at the foot of these Cliffs if you keep walking toward this right before the cliffs the ground slopes down very gently right at this spot you have to be extremely careful because abruptly the slope drops into a massive 143-foot pit straight into the ground this is the Stevens Gap pit it's
one of two entrances to Steven's Gap cave and by far the most dangerous way to enter on one side of the pit there's a flat Edge that's decent to stand on but the Edge from the trail slopes down right into the massive opening it's so easy to slip and fall right into it if you're not paying attention and obviously with the depth it is certain death if you fall in thankfully this isn't the only entrance to Steven's Gap a few dozen feet over from the pit there is a large opening with a much gentler slope
that takes you almost to the bottom but in order to reach the true bottom which is the pet itself you have to wind your way down a series of damp Rocky tunnels as with most caves this requires a helmet with a headlamp because of how dark it gets even with these large openings and thankfully as well over the years the cave was bought and requires a permit because it's now private property this helps to conserve the cave and to prevent anyone from just wandering in and accidentally falling this is also particularly dangerous at night time
when the opening is not easily distinguishable from the pathway in August of 1997 a woman named Karen was visiting Stevens Gap to do some exploring and like many other more experienced cavers she intended on rappelling into the pit all the way to the bottom instead of taking the easier entrance so she and the group she was with got to the entrance and then set up the Rappel anchor near the edge this is usually either by bolting into some rocks or by fixing a rope to some trees then she got on her harness and helmet and
at the front of her harness was her repel device this is a special device that allows you to feed rope through and control your descent speed for her Descent of 143 feet the Rope would need to be several dozen feet longer from The Anchor Point Plus some additional on the end for Slack once everything was ready and Karen was set to go she grabbed to hold the Rope got to the edge of the pit and slowly backed over the edge as she let rope through the repel device she took a few steps down until eventually
she was suspended over nothing but air then she was at 10 feet 20 feet 30 feet and right around 40 feet the Rope went right through the repel device and Karen plummeted a hundred feet to the bottom of the pit and to her death Karen had fed the wrong rope through the repel device the one she grabbed was the safety line that was only 40 feet long and had no knot at the end to prevent it from going right through the repel device without realizing this the Rope slipped right through her fingers and sent her
to the bottom of Steven's Gap pit her body was later recovered from the bottom and tragically she is not the only person to have died at the bottom of this cave in fact several incidents almost exactly like this have occurred over the past few decades there have been a few rope breaks equipment failures and accidental slips and four people died here between 2015 and 2019 alone all of this at the end of this seemingly ordinary Trail through the woods thank you in May of 1990 five divers all gathered in a campground near Gainesville Florida to
do some diving that day they were actually doing something known as potholding which is where you go from Spring to Spring and Diving and checking out the underwater scenery this area of Florida is perfect for that because the sheer number of clear surface Springs that are teeming with sea life this spring they're going exploring this Campground is known as Otter Springs which looks like any other ordinary pond it's not very big there's some trees going around the bank and there's a grassy Beach on the other side what's cool about these Springs though is that because
the water is so clear and warm there are often tons of fish and other sea life in them and even though Otter Springs isn't a very large spring it does go down to around 40 feet and the water is very clear the whole depth after the group had gotten suited up and started exploring the water they all descended to the bottom of the spring to check out a large crack running along the floor in this area as well many of these Springs are either fed by or open up into a large underwater cave system Otter
Springs is one of these and at the bottom of the 40-foot depth there is an entrance inside of a large horizontal crack that runs along the pond floor all five of them got down into this crack and saw that it opened up even further into a rocky semi-circle which tunneled off into the distance unfortunately no one in this group was cave certified so this was as far as they could safely go in fact this group was composed of a woman named Jackie who was a former instructor of several of the others Brothers Ron and Alan
and then two friends Chris and Ken and other than Jackie who had over 100 Dives in Ron who had done 52 Dives the others had done less than seven Dives each so definitely not enough experience to even think about going inside but as they sat at the entrance Jackie could see that Ken wanted to go inside she got his attention and shook her head not to and knowing that she was the most experienced he gave her an okay back then she pointed to her gauge because they were far enough into their dive that it was
time to head back up and then she started swimming up to the surface but not fully appreciating the danger Ken still really wanted to go away in the cave which the others could tell as well and tried talk him out of it but before long Ken was making his way into the tunnel they quickly went in after him to make sure he didn't get lost but soon enough they were all kind of enjoying it as they swim around checking out the different passages and showing each other the cool stuff they were seeing they figured that
when they were done they'd simply retrace their steps and head back out and it would be no big deal when Jackie got to the surface and looked back down and she saw that no one had followed her and her heart sank right away she was pretty upset that they'd gone in especially because it wasn't as simple as just going in after them she sort of had to wait helplessly until it came back up on their own at this point there were still lots of bubbles coming up from the entrance though so she hoped they would
just be in and out quickly and then come back up then she got out of the water into the bank of the spring and watched the water anxiously inside the Cave the four others made their way deeper and deeper having a blast checking out the tunnels then run stopped for a second to look at his gauge and as soon as he lifted his head again all of the silt they had been kicking up everywhere caught up to him and completely blinded him he couldn't see the walls the ceiling up down and then without realizing it
he was hyperventilating swimming around in a panic he swam around frantically bumping into the walls and the ceiling and then more walls all while breathing way more air than he should have been and then miraculously there was light somehow in his Panic he had just happened to stumble back on the exit and immediately swam back up to the surface as soon as he surfaced he looked around and saw Jackie standing on the bank and asked where the others were in his mind he'd been searching desperately for a long time and thought he was the last
person to surface in reality he was the first person to surface everyone else was still somewhere inside Jackie contemplated going back in but with only a little bit of airlift she realized it would be a mistake and while they were having this conversation it clearly sounded panicked and a man nearby walked over and asked them if everything was okay he'd seen everyone go down and then ask them if they were cave certified then he asked if they'd gone to the cave and as soon as they said yes he took off running by chance there was
a barbecue going on that day attended by diving Legend Woody Jasper not only did he have over 500 dies but he had all of his equipment with him in the back of his truck before long he was running over and suiting up to get in the water and Not only was he angry that they'd been so irresponsible he knew that the chances of getting them out alive were very slim they'd been in for almost an hour at that point which was a long time for the type of equipment it they had on especially if they
were panicked finally Woody dropped into the water and made his way to the cave entrance and saw that it was clear of any silt this meant that no one had been in this area for a while and the three left inside were not close to the entrance as he got into the tunnels he was almost certain that this would be a body recovery then he made his way deeper in and came up to an obvious fork with one tunnel even left and the other tunnel leading right one of these was still cloudy so he went
into that tunnel and almost immediately this proved to be right when not far into the tunnel he found a mask on the floor in a panic State divers will often lose their masks or take them off shortly before drowning The Mask then sinks to the bottom while their body stays in place then Woody looked directly up from the mask and saw four legs huddled together in a crevice but he couldn't see their heads because they were in a small air pocket that had been created by their own expelled gas he released some of his own
gas to Bubble Up and Signal them but they didn't respond then he tried pulling on their legs and realized they were unconscious in the gas pocket this gas pocket was created by their expelled Heir and didn't have enough oxygen to keep them alive at some point they had passed out and were now slowly suffocating upon realizing this he grabbed one of them and immediately headed for the surface as soon as he was out of the water Jackie saw that it was Alan and he was blue and he wasn't breathing or responding they got him back
to the bank and start CPR right away while Woody went right back down into the cave he quickly got to the fork and went back to the crevice but this time incredibly the other diver was moving the gas what he used to try to Signal them was just enough for him to regain Consciousness Woody then swam up to him and grabbed his hand to reassure him that help was there on the surface CPR continued and soon enough they noticed that Alan's eye started to move around it seemed as though Alan might pull through then all
of a sudden the person performing compressions actually felt a heartbeat under his hand as Allen started to regain Consciousness he still had tons of water in his lungs and there was no telling how much brain damage he might have due to lack of auction but at least for now he was alive back in the tunnels Woody buddy breathed with the other diver all the way to the surface where Jackie saw it was Chris and by the time they got there he was able to get out of the water on his own Woody immediately went right
back down this time to find Ken who had been in the water the longest he made his way back to the fork then passed the air pocket and eventually to Ken's body unlike the other two he had drowned he was brought back up to the surface and CPR was performed but he would never regain consciousness he was simply without oxygen for too long and Jackie would even say he looked different when he was brought up she knew right away there was no saving him foreign [Music] if you've seen my video covering the Moss till Caverns
disaster you might remember that it took place in Yorkshire Dales National Park in England this area is unique in that it possesses the perfect combination of conditions for the landscape to be riddled with caves the surface here is covered in Limestone and it rains in England as much as its stereotyped to do making this area a caver's dream in this one national park there are over 2500 known caves and probably many more that have yet to be discovered many of these connect together through impossibly tight passages and others are their own distinct expansive systems many
of these are just small potholes and many of these are massive underground labyrinths that possess Chambers large enough to fit entire buildings into about an hour from the edge of this National Park is tadcaster grammar school which is a high school that takes students on all sorts of exciting field trips this might be out to the coast to see the ocean or to the countryside and yearly to the caves of Yorkshire Dales and the students love caving contrary to what many people imagine caving as it's not all tight squeezes and claustrophobia inducing crawling caves come
into different shapes and difficulties with beginner and intermediate caves allowing newer cavers to explore the alien underground world without much of the associated danger these are exactly the types of conditions that the students set out to experience in November of 2005. from the school in tadcaster they traveled an hour Northwest toward the park welcome center from there they traveled another 45 minutes or so through the Rolling Green Hills of the English Countryside along these two lane roads marked with little stone walls on either side the students made their way deeper into Yorkshire Dales National Park
before coming on a depression in one of the hills from a distance this looks like nothing more than a small divot in the green Hillside completely unremarkable it's covered in some bushes and there's a tree stump on one side but as you get closer you can see that this depression keeps going into the Hillside and eventually turns into a small opening this opening is actually the entrance to a cave known as Manchester hole this entrance as with many in the area gives no indication of the huge expansive tunnels under the earth's surface in fact Manchester
hole alone descends for over a thousand feet underground and it's even part of a larger system known as goit pot this larger system is Miles and Miles of tunnels that you'd never expect to be underneath the grassy Hills above but despite its size Manchester hole is not a very technically challenging cave there aren't any super tight squeezes or large vertical shafts and there isn't much special equipment required other than some waterproof clothing this makes it a popular destination for amateur cavers and novices because you can still get all the cave experience without any of the
additional danger and so it was perfect for this class of 14 year olds on their first caving Adventure from a Rocky Creek bed the group of 10 students and three teachers pulled on their yellow rubber suits and helmets fixed with headlamps and then made their way into the depression in the hillside from the entrance the bushes and other vegetation quickly disappears down a series of descending Boulders as the light no longer filters in the group then made their way into a horizontal Corridor filled with large Jagged Boulders and about an eight foot high ceiling and
already it was very dark just the smallest amount of light from their headlamps lit up the hallway then they made their way into the first large chamber which is almost like a theater because of how big it is this room has some small puddles and a stream running its length but interestingly it didn't have any stalactites on the ceiling instead it looked as though there was mud caked on the ceiling given the Rocks a dirty Brown finish instead of the usual Gray the students took a look around the chamber and then moved into the next
series of passages which is more or less a scramble over a bunch of Boulders and just like the students the year before they were having a blast exploring the underground world then they went through one more large room before coming up on the only real challenge in Manchester whole this challenging section is known as the crawl it's about 40 feet long and the ceiling here is much lower than the rest of the cave at around three feet high then right in the middle of this length there is a U-shaped depression in both the floor and
the ceiling so as you're crawling along you have to go down into this depression and then back up on the other side but in comparison to the tight squeezes of some other caves this crawl isn't much of a challenge three feet is more than enough room to crawl comfortably so one by one all of the students made their way across the 40-foot crawl that had about six inches of water running along the Bottom now over a thousand feet into the cave and a couple of hours into the trip the students split into smaller groups and
started checking out some of the fossil formations that cover the walls at this depth it was around this point in their trip that they might have noticed something terrifying happening inside the cave up River of the Manchester Hall is a water reservoir that supplies water to the nearby area on one side of this Reservoir is a dam to keep all of the water in and this Stone Dam has a walkway that runs across the top supporting this walkway are these Big Stone arches that look similar to The Arches of an aqueduct the water level in
this Reservoir fluctuates based on the demand nearby and how much it rains and so inside the reservoir this means that the water level will either be far from The Arches or right up to the Arches traditionally the water level inside Manchester hole can be reliably predicted by how close the water is to The Arches when the water is close to the Arches this means that it's been raining a lot and so naturally there will be a lot of water inside the cave while the water is far from The Arches the cave is much drier that
day the water was high but there wasn't any rain in the forecast so this shouldn't have been an issue except that day while they were exploring the winds on the surface became violently strong and caused massive waves to form in the reservoir these then crashed through the Arches and caused the river to rise several feet in under an hour and because these caves often have multiple entrances and drainage systems this then poured directly into Manchester whole and the reason that the Manchester hole has mud along the ceiling is that as with the most Caverns it
tends to flood completely as the students went around exploring all of a sudden within just a few minutes the water went from ankle deep to chest deep and with how quickly this happened everyone went into a complete panic and started sprinting toward the exit each of the smaller groups made their way through the corridors fighting the freezing cold water rushing in and the currents that it created and eventually they all got to the crawl which created a bottleneck and slowed down their progress with how high the water had gotten it completely submerged the u-shaped depression
Midway through this meant that the students had to literally swim through the freezing Rushing Water to get through to the side and to find their way through the water all they had were their now dimming headlamps as they lined up to go through one by one in last was one of the instructors and one of the students named Joseph Joseph was a really strong swimmer and knowing this he let a bunch of students go through before him to make sure they could get through the strong current finally once all the other students had gone through
the two of them went in together and started swimming before they could get to the other side they bumped into some of the other students who hadn't cleared the way yet and forced them to turn back around so they came back out on the other side waited for a few moans and then went right back in this time Joe went ahead of the instructor and the last time she saw him he was heading through the tunnel ahead of her this time she came up out of the water and the way was cleared so they all
kept running toward the exit thankfully they made it safely to the surface where they were surprised to see that no rain had fallen but the creek that was there when they first entered was now a Rushing River then they did a head count and got 12. then they counted again and it was 12 again and then they realized that Joe wasn't with them Joe hadn't made it to the other side of the crawl but in the chaos no one had realized until they made it out of the cave and in the area they were in
there wasn't even any cell reception to contact emergency services as soon as they were in range they made the call and by late afternoon 40 Rescuers descended on the cave with the water already much lower it took them less than an hour to make their way to the crawl and tragically Joe was found lying lifelessly on the other side he was in a state of severe hypothermia and was removed from the cave and taken to the hospital as fast as possible but unfortunately he never regained consciousness this was just devastating for his friends and family
because not only had he died a Hero trying to help other students he was just beloved by everyone at tadcaster he was a star student and athlete and was considered by everyone to have an incredibly bright future ahead of him to make matters worse it's not entirely clear what happens that caused his death the leading theory is that the combination of the dimming headlamps the freezing water and a possible surge of water resulted in him going down the wrong passage then he wasn't able to make it back before running out of air and passing out
then sometime later the water flushed his body back to the other side of the crawl with this tragic loss obviously many people were angry and felt there were some negligence on the part of the instructors with the reservoir being such a short distance away it was seen as irresponsible not to check the water levels but over the course the court proceedings it was found that other than the freak wind the instructors had followed all of the other safety protocols and procedures and ultimately ruled that no one was responsible for Joe's death in the history of
caving in Manchester whole the water levels have never risen as quickly before or since it was just a tragic and freak occurrence foreign thank you so much for watching and hopefully I will see you in the next one
