The Man in the Shaft

The Pennine range runs like a spine through the English Midlands. At Peak Cavern, which lies at its southern end, eight experienced "potholers," under the auspices of Britain's Speleological Association, last week began the exploration of a newly discovered underground passage. They first worked their way in by a series of up and down scrambles, then wriggled through a narrow tunnel with a mud floor and a roof that was sometimes no more than 10 in. above their heads. It took them two hours to progress 600 ft. The tunnel suddenly broadened into a fairly large chamber 1,000 ft. beneath the surface. Leading off from the chamber was a shaft measuring 2 1/2 by 1 1/2 ft. A young Oxford student, Neil Moss, 20, led the way but after a few moments' descent, his alarmed cry came back: "I'm stuck! I can't budge an inch."

Mud & Darkness. A lamp flashed down the shaft 40 ft. below showed that Moss was trapped by the breadth of his shoulders. Ropes were quickly lowered, but Moss was wedged so tightly that he could not move his arms. More serious, the air in the passage was foul. As hours passed, Moss alternately gritted his teeth and joked with the men trying to help him. An oxygen mask was lowered, but there was not even room enough to fit it over his face. After four hours he became delirious, finally drifted into unconsciousness.

The first radio broadcasts brought a response of British courage and skill reminiscent of the blitz. More than 200 potholers poured in from nearby towns. A clerk who had been refused time off to help in the rescue quit his job. An R.A.F. mountain rescue unit arrived, followed by crack rescue groups from the National Coal Board and the submarine base at Gosport. Hospitals sent cylinders of oxygen. The rescue workers struggled through the mud and darkness, slithered into waist-high pools. Fifty volunteers were spaced out at intervals in the tunnel to make a hand chain for passing on ropes, food, lamps, oxygen cylinders.

Another Go. Flight Lieut. John Carter, an R.A.F. medical officer, kept the unconscious Moss alive by pumping oxygen down a tube. One after the other, eight men were lowered down the shaft, but only three reached Moss, and all blacked out because of the motionless, foul air. None was able to make a head-first descent and keep an oxygen mask over his face. Finally a tiny (5 ft.) printer from Derby named Ron Peters, 25, got close enough to be able to touch the trapped man's shoulder but began to gasp for air, had to be pulled up fast. On being revived with oxygen, Peters said: "I'll have another go.'' This time he managed to tie a hemp rope around Moss's chest. Slowly but strongly the rope was pulled taut, and Neil Moss moved 18 in. upward, then got stuck fast again. His breathing stopped, and the rescuers had to slacken their chest hold until respiration started again. Another man, John Larson, spent 1 1/2 hours unsuccessfully trying to budge Moss's right arm. "The carbon dioxide fumes make you lightheaded," he said, "and you think you see elephants and fairies."

As hope faded, workers began chipping away with crowbars and hammers to widen the shaft. Air purification equipment was brought in, but the canister proved too big to get into the shaft. Hooks were lowered on ropes and inserted in Moss's clothing, and he was raised another foot, only to get stuck again.

Red Helmet, Red Sweater. Thirty-two hours had passed, and Moss was reported to be "weakening fast." At 2 o'clock Tuesday morning, in answer to a broadcast appeal for an "expert potholer, less than 5 ft. tall, weighing under 112 Ibs., exceptionally athletic and with unlimited courage," June Bailey, 18, appeared, a slip of a girl wearing a red helmet and red sweater. She was instructed to break both of Moss's collarbones to help narrow the width of his shoulders and perhaps free him. But before she could enter the shaft, the trapped man had died. "It was a horrid moment," said Flight Lieut. Carter. "There was no sound as I hung my head down the shaft, and I knew he was gone at last."

At the tunnel's mouth, Cotton Executive Eric Moss, who had been on the site since the news of the accident reached him, said: "I don't want anybody else to risk their lives by trying to get my son's body out. Let's leave him where he is." But rescuers, who thought such a decision "goes right against the grain of every potholer," got permission to drive a new 20-ft. tunnel to get Moss's body out, because "it will teach us a lot in avoidance of future accidents."

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