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Alyona Kibitkina, a former member of the Samara University Speleology Club, was one of eight Samara speleologists that showed compassion to another person’s misfortune. Also, Valentin Potapov, a Head of the University Speleology Club, and the club members Alina Shamarova and Nikita Kolotilin came to rescue at the site.
Alyona Kibitkina shared more details with the Sovainfo.ru portal.
“We came there to visit the local caves — the Kinderlinskaya Cave, the Lednyova Cave, the Ayu-Yskan Cave. We had quite a lot of gear for that purpose, such as carabiners, climbing pitons, and ropes. There were no rescue works on our agenda. We don’t respond to emergencies, because we are neither rescuers nor representatives of the EMERCOM of Russia. We just have the skills that allow providing help when transporting those injured underground. If an emergency right next to us occur, we can help. However, if there is an emergency, and we are far away, no one calls us immediately asking to come. We found out what had happened in the Kinderlinskaya Cave when passing by the accident scene, about 15 minutes after the girl’s fall. We found ourselves in that part of the cave by accident at that exact moment.
As the Samara participants of the rescue mission told the mass media, three persons worked underground and five more helped on the surface: they brought necessary gear and supported the girl’s husband. Alexander Yerkhov, a student of the Samara Speleology School, was the first to tell the camp about the emergency. “I was the one who delivered information about the emergency to the camp and about what the injured needed at the moment. In such a situation it’s critical to create a warm environment as soon as possible — it’s cold in the caves. At the moment of the accident, I was underground and moved to the camp that was close to the entrance to the cave. We packed up the required things. The rest of time I stayed in the camp with a portable radio set at hand or delivered all the necessary things to the cave.”
Alyona Kibitkina described the work of Samara speleologists underground: “The temperature in the cave is about +8 degrees. In comparison to +20 outside, it’s cold. The person can’t stay there without moving — they need to be warmed. Together with the speleologists from Ufa we arranged a warm shelter for the girl (we brought a sleeping bag, sleeping pads, isofolia (a thermal blanket. — ed. note), and so on). Then we helped to get the participants ready for transportation where a rope was needed. Partially, our gear was used. We helped the rescuers to expand the narrow passage. Also, we were ready to help with the transportation of the injured girl, as we have an experience with stretcher movement under the ground and along the ropes.”
A 23-year-old girl was inside the cave, 2.5 km away from the entrance. The total length of the underground site is about 15 km, it’s located 128 meters under the Earth. The girl was seriously injured when she fell and couldn’t move.
As the Samara speleologists noted, in such a situation it was important not only to administer first aid correctly, but also not to cause any harm. Alyona Kibitkina elaborated: “The girl fell from height and hurt her head. In this case there are always assumptions of a spinal compression fracture, neck injuries, and traumatic brain injuries. When moving the victim or lifting her one needs to be extremely careful; it should be done when absolutely necessary only, and the best course of action is doing nothing. If the girl’s friends started moving or transferring her, they could cause even more harm. Also, has she not been covered with rescue blankets immediately, she could have simply frozen.”
The injured girl had to be lifted to the surface on a rigid stretcher in a narrow space constricted with stone hitches. As the EMERCOM of Russia informed, in total, four vertical lifts had been performed and three descents of various heights. Where the stretcher didn’t fit, the passage was forcefully expanded. The rescue mission lasted for about seven hours.
Alyona Kibitkina noted: “During any rescue missions, both training and actual, the longest and the most difficult task is to get ready for transportation of a stretcher. The girl was packed in a stretcher and carried away — it happened very fast. But the preparations of all the participants to that moment took much more. The rescue mission lasted for seven hours after the arrival of the EMERCOM of Russia only. In fact, the emergency itself happened at about 17:40 Bashkir time. As far as I remember, the injured girl was taken from the cave at 02:30 only. So, it took much more time from the moment of the emergency till the girl’s delivery to the ambulance car.”
On the stretcher the girl was brought to the ambulance car and taken to the hospital. She was diagnosed a closed fracture of pelvic bones and a closed craniocerebral injury.
The Samara speleologists call it a miracle that at the moment of the emergency there were people near the victim that managed to administer aid correctly. “The girl was very lucky because of three things: first of all, there was an EMERCOM officer nearby when she fell, a speleologist. He was there by accident almost — he led a group. Had it happened 10 later — he wouldn’t have been in the cave. Secondly, she was lucky that speleologists from Ufa together with a member of the Bashkortostan special volunteer unit worked in the cave that day. Had it happened another day or had they, for example, decided not to work in the cave that day, everything would have ended much worse. Thirdly, we managed to pass by. We had quite a lot of gear with us and on the surface. We used it to arrange a part of the area for transportation. And that was another lucky thing: be it ten minutes earlier or later — we could have not passed or met her at all,” Alyona Kibitkina said.
The speleologists from Samara emphasized that even the cave itself helped: “It was ready for rescue works: training rescue works had already been held there, there were required points on the walls for us to hang lifting lugs and the rope. They were in a required amount, in required places. Another specificity is that the cave is large in the area where it all happened. It’s exactly were wide passages are. There was only one narrow place — it was expanded quickly enough, and the stretchers managed to come through.”
It is known that the group the girl was a part of never got registered anywhere. They didn’t have any gear either. Alexander Yerkhov stayed with the husband of the injured girl in the camp during the rescue mission. He said: “Upon the initiative of inexperienced guides (strangers in fact — some friends of friends) their group took off to the cave. Their flashlights were poor, so was the rest of gear. Ascending the stairs in the darkness she thought she was making the right step, but made one into the emptiness instead and fell from the height of six meters. A 7-hour rescue mission is a fast thing, actually. I expected it to take much more time. As there were several groups of professional speleologists there already, a lot of available material and human resources, they managed to shorten the timeframe significantly. Rescue works in the caves are always a challenging and long process. The injured needs to be transported across a complicated landscape, both horizontally and vertically. Also, the caves are often located in the places that are difficult for access. The rescuers need a lot of time to get where they need to.”
The speleologists from Samara emphasized that it was more than dangerous to go to such places without experts, without proper training and gear. Unfortunately, not all the victims of emergencies manage to survive. “People don’t recognize all the risks. When everything has already happened, the mistakes seem so clear: that they should have taken this and that with them or, perhaps, they should have never gone there at all. However, people don’t even try to find any information before going to the cave. The don’t try to understand how to move through the cave safely and what might happen. People don’t ask themselves these questions,” Alyona Kibitkina concluded.
Source: sovainfo.ru
