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Published on September 9, 2023
Updated September 9, 2023 3:17 PM ET
Rescue workers began what was expected to be a lengthy attempt Saturday to evacuate a New York cave explorer who fell ill more than 3,000 feet underground.
An international team of more than 170 rescuers set up a complicated medical relay system in Turkey’s third-deepest cave to help 40-year-old cave explorer Mark Dickey. But it could still be a week or more before it surfaces, depending on how sick he is.
“This afternoon, the operation to move him from his camp at 1,040 meters to the camp at 700 meters began,” Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Directorate, AFAD, said.
Dickey, of Croton-on-Hudson, New York, became ill with gastrointestinal bleeding on September 2 during a mapping expedition in Morca Cave in southern Turkey’s Taurus Mountains.
“As soon as we get the green light from the medical team, we will start evacuating,” said Recep Salci, who heads the search and rescue department of the Turkish disaster relief organization AFAD.
Tulga Sener, a doctor and medical coordinator for the rescue, said teams had set up small “medical camps” throughout the cave shaft and set up a “mini-lab” to monitor Dickey’s condition as he was taken out of the cave.
Rescuers began rescuing sick caver Mark Dickey from a cave in Turkey. TURKISH LINE OF COMMUNICATI/AFP via Getty Images Dickey fell ill during a mapping expedition of Morca Cave last week. Portal
Rescuers predicted that as Dickey exited the cave, he would have to repeatedly stop and rest. This is one of the factors involved in predicting that it could take a week or more to reach the surface.
“This is a difficult operation,” said Cenk Yildiz, a regional official with Turkey’s disaster relief agency, ABC News reported. “It would take a (healthy) person 16 hours to come out.”
How long it actually takes depends on Dickey’s condition and strength. The biggest question, Salci says, is whether he can leave the cave on his own two feet, whether he needs help from others or whether he needs to be carried on a stretcher.
“If he comes up on a stretcher, it could be 10 days,” Salci said. “If he gets help, we plan to raise him in four or five days.”
Dickey vomited, bleeding and losing fluid from his stomach.
Rescuers previously said they hoped to begin evacuating Dickey from the cave on Saturday or Sunday.
via Portal
Doctors gave the sick researcher IV fluids and at least four liters of blood, officials said.
Rotating teams consisting of a doctor and three or four others monitored Dickey.
He has since stopped vomiting and even managed to eat, according to a New Jersey-based cave rescue group he belongs to.
On Thursday, the Turkish government released a video showing Dickey standing and moving in the cave.
The plane used by several European rescue teams to recover Dickey.AP
“The caving world is a really tight-knit group and it’s amazing to see how many people have responded on the surface,” Dickey said in the video.
The European Cave Rescue Association, which described Dickey as a “highly skilled cave explorer and cave rescuer himself,” said Saturday his health was stable but that doctors would want to check his blood work before the extraction began.
The club said on Friday the cave had been divided into seven levels for Dickey’s evacuation, with different rescue teams taking responsibility for each section. Communications in the cave had also been improved ahead of the extraction effort, the group said.
Rescuers from all over Europe came forward to help Dickey. Portal
Dickey, a veteran National Cave Rescue Commission instructor, was co-leading a mapping expedition to search for a new passageway in the 4,186-foot-deep Morca Cave system for the Anatolian Speleology Group Association when he fell ill at a depth of about 3,674 feet.
Dickey thanked the Turkish government for its “quick response” in sending him medical supplies that “saved” his life.
“I was very close to the edge,” he said.
With post wires
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