Local Caver shares safety tips for spelunking

The Spark

Underground caves are a complex, underground ecosystem that must be treated with care and responsibility. Pat Minnick is a member of the Franklin County Grotto which is a local chapter of the National Speleological Society. Minnick shared some of the dangers of the popular recreational activity.

“The most common type of injury. With the carving action, it is a cave or fall. Someone trips falls and generally it might result in a lower leg injury, sprained ankle, broken leg, that kind of thing.”

Minnick also recommends letting a trusted friend or family member know when you decide to go caving.

“Now, you want to allow enough time so that if you're, you know, maybe an hour late or something, nobody's punching 911. But you need to let somebody know where you're going and have a plan of what you're going to do if the person doesn't come out. Most recreational cavers go to someplace that's known. However, a lot of people are doing project cave in cave mapping, so they're going in to maybe a known cave, but there's unknown passage beyond. So, they're in the process of mapping the cave. And mapping the cave involves compass and a tape measuring, measuring the cave, and then doing the cartography or drawing up the map. So, they're people that that excel at that and produce wonderful cave maps that show new maps and new caves.”

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