Surviving underground

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rhp

Jan 6, 2005
4
0
Swansea
From this morning's paper:

" Lost man survives 34 days in caves - A man who spent 34 days lost in the cold, dark caves of an abandoned mushroom plantation told rescuers that he survived by eating bits of wood and soil, licking rusted iron and sipping from an underground source of water."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/01/24/wcave24.xml

So, apart from getting lost in the first place, how would you have done it differently?

- Dick
 
B

bombadil

Guest
I could think of more pleasant places to have to survive in!.....Good story.....cheers for the link
 

jakunen

Native
Glad to see his wife was so concerned...

t.gif
His wife Ginou said: "At last I could see him, stroke his cheek and tell him there were plenty of do-it-yourself chores in need of his attention.
 

bambodoggy

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Nov 10, 2004
3,062
50
49
Surrey
www.stumpandgrind.co.uk
I liked his Son's comment "Christmas was a bit of a nightmare"!!! The master of understatement me thinks!!!!

As for doing it differently.....You covered that in your question, I wouldn't have gone down there half-cut in the first place.... Not quite sure of the merits of licking rust and eating soil though.... :?:
I'm not claustrophobic but I'm no great fan of caves and tunnels either!
 

jakunen

Native
Great Pebble said:
I don't know about you lot but I know what I always heard mushrooms were fed on, I reckon soil is a euphimism.

:yikes:

Hate to disappoint you but, No! Its NOT a euphamism.
semi-composted sweepings from stables are the preffered medium for growing mushrooms. You can use peat but it tends to dry out too quickly and doesn't contain enough nutrients.
 

ChrisKavanaugh

Need to contact Admin...
One of our ETS members posted this story too. Obviously he made the cardinal mistake of not telling anyone of his plans. I would have made some manner of mark at my starting point and then begin slow, deliberate explorations, further marking my progress for a set of references back to square 1. With luck and effort the entrance could be relocated.
 

Adi

Nomad
Dec 29, 2004
339
5
Lost in a three mile labyrinth for 34 days, shortly you could come up with a strategy to escape and it only took 90 minuets to find him. He wasn’t much of a survivor was he.

In that situation when you realised you were lost wouldn’t you think hold on, if I but my left hand on the tunnel wall and walk in one direction until you find the exit. You would probably get yourself out in 90 minuets.

:shock:
 

Moine

Forager
Funny how different media tell the story differently :rolleyes:

Anyways most of the tunnels were in pitch black. No light at all. The tunnels were not square or organized logically. They mostly followed natural caves and were a network of tunnels, some straight and wide, some small and twisted. Moving around there with no visual cues at all must have been very hard.

The guy came out at night. He spent the whole night awake just to be sure he'd not miss the sun rising...

I agree that eating wood and such was pretty useless but getting in there depressed and yet surviving 34 days of ordeal is a feat by itself.

Just my opinion,

David
 

Moonraker

Need to contact Admin...
Aug 20, 2004
1,190
18
61
Dorset & France
Moine said:
Funny how different media tell the story differently :rolleyes:

Anyways most of the tunnels were in pitch black. No light at all. The tunnels were not square or organized logically. They mostly followed natural caves and were a network of tunnels, some straight and wide, some small and twisted. Moving around there with no visual cues at all must have been very hard.

The guy came out at night. He spent the whole night awake just to be sure he'd not miss the sun rising...

I agree that eating wood and such was pretty useless but getting in there depressed and yet surviving 34 days of ordeal is a feat by itself.

Just my opinion,

David

Quite true about the media David :roll:

Looking at the actual story from Depeche du Midi (nearly my local newspaper :) ) it quotes him thus:
I kept looking for a week," Josuat-Verges told the Journal du Dinanche newspaper Sunday. "It was truly terrioble fumbling around with nothing to eat. Luckily the walls were dripping with water so I could drink."

Josuat-Verges then determined to sit it out and wait for the rescue services.

"It was the survival instinct that saved me. I never panicked. I even sang a bit. I found some old plastic sheets which I wrapped myself in and then I went into a corner from which I did not budge.

"There was no food so I sucked bits of limestone for the minerals, as well as decomposing wood and lumps of clay. Hunger was never a problem, unlike the cold and the damp," he said.
Apart from getting into that situation I would say he did most everything right. Tackling hypothermia, finding a source of water, then staying put and above all, raising his own moral seems the most sensible thing in that situation.

As for eating clay, well people eat soil out of choice like Jesper Parnavik the Swedish golfer who eats volcanic dust to ‘cleanse the system’. :D The practice even has a name Geophagia.

From reports it appears that rather than providing additional source of minerals eating clay in fact does the reverse:
A brief summary of the research carried out on the problem of geophagia is reported in this paper. Geophagia was a common finding among Turkish children and women in villages, associated with severe iron deficiency anemia in addition to zinc depletion. The syndrome characterized by geophagia, iron deficiency anemia, growth retardation, hypogonadism and zinc deficiency has been observed in both sexes in Turkey for several decades. Zinc deficiency has been also shown by our group in this syndrome. The decreased concentrations of zinc in serum, plasma, RBC, hair and urine were measured by atomic absorption spectrophotometer. Oral iron (both inorganic and radioactive iron) and zinc absorption tests were carried out with and without clay and revealed decreased iron and zinc absorption in some cases with prolonged geophagia. Therefore, malabsorption of iron and zinc was considered to be an additional and/or a new finding in the syndrome. Furthermore, Turkish clay most probably inhibits zinc absorption in a way similar to its inhibition of iron absorption. It was worthy of observation that some Turkish patients with this syndrome had a thalassemia-like appearance with similar skull-bone changes. Finally, growth retardation and delayed puberty were shown to be corrected by oral zinc treatment for 6-month terms. Linear growth and sexual maturation were found to be greater in the zinc-treated group than in the controls.
source: Geophagia in Turkey: iron and zinc deficiency, iron and zinc absorption studies and response to treatment with zinc in geophagia cases. Cavdar AO, Arcasoy A, Cin S, Babacan E, Gozdasoglu S.

Bit more info here:

Guardian Unlimited - Is it safe to eat mud?

So licking rusted iron probably did help but was probably then balanced out by the effects of eating the clay :wink:

Finally a pretty amazing tale about soil eating out of poverty and hunger in North Carolina and a lot more details about the practice:

Cabinet Magazine Issue 3 Summer 2001 - The Soil Eaters

I thought this quote was interesting in the context of the Josuat-Verges's experience:
Within this framework, soil eating is poverty and hunger's most extreme outpost. It is an activity that is charged with a strangely archaic quality where a lack is miraculously turned into a surplus. In his febrile state of hunger, the soil eater transforms the clay of the bed river into filling food. He is set within a hallucinogenic landscape where the very ground he walks on is transformed into nourishment.
 

pumbaa

Settler
Jan 28, 2005
687
2
50
dorset
Personally i can see the use of iron and charcoal for medicinal purposes . but mud ! I realise that mud would basically be de-composed leaves and animals , but i would imagine that anything worthy would be far gone by the time it has broken down to mud ! Has anyone tried a nourishment test on a decaying chicken ?
No seriously!
Pumbaa
 

Moine

Forager
Moonraker,

Nice post :)

I recently saw a doc on Arte/5 that showed how animals instinctively treated themselves from many illnesses by eating all sorts of things. They showed a group of monkeys eating clay to stop diarrheas. It worked. As they ate it only as a remedy, it probably didn't have much ill-effects on them.

PM sent.

Cheers,

David
 

Pict

Settler
Jan 2, 2005
611
0
Central Brazil
clearblogs.com
Among the undernourished in rural Brazil it is quite common to hear of pregnant women nibbling on broken clay pots. They say it gives them minerals that they lack in their diet. They also put an chunk of iron re-bar in the pot to add iron and add powered egg shell for calcium.

I can't imagine he got much from the soil he ate. Immobile as he was he was really just comsuming himself.

This really does underscore the importance of minimal gear carried daily. On my key ring there is a mini-mag solitare, a small knife, and a BSA Hotspark. If he had my keys along maybe he wouldn't have been so bad off.

Despondent people make poor survivors usually. I'm surprised he survived given his mental state when he entered. I wonder what the time in there did for him? Mac
 

Stuart

Full Member
Sep 12, 2003
4,141
50
**********************
I'm surprised he survived given his mental state when he entered. I wonder what the time in there did for him? Mac

well he had plenty of time to think.

has anyone here explored box mines? imagine being lost in there without a light :shock:
 

Moine

Forager
I've had a very surprising experience in a total darkness situation. After 3 hours in total dark, my night vision was "all out" and I could use my watch as a flashlight !!! When I didn't look at it, but rather pointed it away from me, I could literally see a low intensity beam of light in fornt of me, that allowed me to navigate, seeing obstables about 4-5 feet in front of me...

I thought I'd share the trick...

Cheers,

David
 

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