A group of spelunkers on Sunday was about 400 feet deep in an upstate New York cave when one of them, a Brooklyn man who was belly-crawling through a precarious stretch known as the bear trap, plunged into a crevice and was pinned for six hours, the authorities said.<\/p>\n
Three friends tried to free him by chipping away at the rock with a hammer. But that didn\u2019t work, and after a few hours, they all began to develop hypothermia, said Lt. John Gullen, a forest ranger with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, who led the rescue mission.<\/p>\n
It took rescuers, including members of the Albany-Schoharie Cave Rescue Team, another three hours and a rock drill to free the man from the passageway, which is part of Merlins Cave in Canaan, N.Y., about 30 miles southeast of Albany.<\/p>\n
The man was treated for hypothermia but was otherwise unharmed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was able to squeeze my way over top of the subject and then get behind him by his feet,\u201d Lieutenant Gullen said in an interview<\/a> recorded by the department, adding that the man \u201cwas really jammed in there.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHis full body was stuck in a crevice that was basically designed the exact shape of him,\u201d the lieutenant said.<\/p>\n The explorers were leaving the cave when the man became wedged around 6 p.m., said Greg Moore, a co-captain of the Albany-Schoharie Cave Rescue Team.<\/p>\n All of the spelunkers were experienced cavers and had permission to be there, Captain Moore said.<\/p>\n After other members of the party tried to rescue the man on their own, a few left the cave to call 911.<\/p>\n The mouth of the cave is atop a mountain roughly a mile from the road through woods. Firefighters had to bring two off-road vehicles to transport rescuers back and forth to reach the cave.<\/p>\n Captain Moore said there were about a dozen firefighters, two medical doctors, eight rescuers and six spelunkers on the scene by the time he arrived.<\/p>\n He said that the rescuers had brought miniature Reese\u2019s Peanut Butter Cups for the trapped man, to keep his energy up.<\/p>\n \u201cWe first tried some ropes and webbing \u2014 rock-climbing equipment \u2014 to try pulling him up,\u201d said Emily Davis, the other co-captain of the rescue team. \u201cBut we couldn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n Next, rescuers tried drilling.<\/p>\n After nearly two hours, Lieutenant Gullen was able to pull the man a few inches out of the fissure. The Department of Environmental Conservation did not publicly identify the rescued man.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was really jammed in by this one nub of rock,\u201d Lieutenant Gullen said in the interview, adding that he had used a special tool to drill into the rock just inches from the man\u2019s head.<\/p>\n