
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 3, 1991                   TAG: 9104030574
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CARLSBAD, N.M.                                LENGTH: Medium

`BUCKET BRIGADE' EMPLOYED IN CAVE RESCUE

Experts trying to free an explorer who broke her leg inside the nation's deepest known cave organized a bucket brigade of rescuers to carry her today through a treacherous passage known as The Rift.

Emily Davis Mobley, who was part of a mapping expedition into Lechuguilla Cave, was injured Sunday about two miles inside the cave.

On Tuesday, with her leg in a splint, she was hoisted on a stretcher up the 250-foot Great White Way, a rock wall with a series of ledges, said park Ranger Jeff Denny.

Rescuers talked to her by telephone after stringing a line into the cave, and she asked for a pizza and a hairbrush. Rescuers have been sending food and painkillers to Mobley, and a doctor was among several people with her.

"She told us everything was going well," Denny said. "She told us to be cool on top."

The rescue, which probably won't be completed before Thursday or Friday, has drawn top cave experts from all over the United States.

The giant step Tuesday placed her nearly halfway to open air, or 1\ miles from the cave entrance, which has been rigged with ropes and pulleys to hoist her. She was at about 1,000 feet when she was injured.

David Modisette and other rescuers today planned to use boulders wedged into the rift as stepping stones while inching Mobley through the L-shaped fracture by passing her on a stretcher from one person to the next.

"It's typical in something like this to try not to move when you're carrying somebody," Modisette said. "Once you pass her, you break out of line and go around the other

rescuers" to the end of the line.

He said the relay would require "muscling her through the rough parts."

The cave, situated in a remote area of Carlsbad Caverns National Park, was discovered in 1986 and is not open to the public.

The National Park Service allows only about 200 people in annually for exploration and mapping.

The cave is 1,565 feet deep. About 54 miles of passageways and rooms full of colorful, delicate rock formations have been mapped so far.

Mobley, of Schoharie, N.Y., has 20 years experience in caves. She fell about 12 feet Sunday while climbing down a steep slope. An 80-pound rock gave way when she put her weight on it and fell on her left leg below the kneecap.

by CNB