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

DATE: FRIDAY, April 5, 1991                   TAG: 9104050127
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CARLSBAD, N.M.                                LENGTH: Medium

INJURED EXPLORER FREED FROM DEPTHS OF CAVE

Rescuers overcame a maze of narrow passages, massive cliffs and treacherous chasms to pull an injured explorer from the nation's deepest cave early Thursday.

"Oh, the stars are out tonight," a jubilant Emily Davis Mobley said after her stretcher poked up from Lechuguilla Cave in Carlsbad Caverns National Park.

Mobley, 40, had a simple fracture of the left tibia and was in good condition Thursday, said Ruth Mead, Guadalupe Medical Center spokeswoman. She said doctors at the hospital in Carlsbad would set Mobley's leg today.

Mobley, who suffered a broken leg Sunday, emerged shortly after 1 a.m., ending a four-day operation that drew cave experts from around the United States. "Yee haw!" she yelled.

The veteran spelunker called her husband, Bill, at home in Schoharie, N.Y., after she was lifted the final 70 feet out of the cave.

Originally, officials said they didn't expect to get Mobley out of the cave before late Thursday or today. When she broke her leg, she was 1,000 feet beneath the surface and more than two miles from the entrance of the complex cavern.

Rescuers had to stretch rope across chasms and weave them through pulleys up steep slopes to bring Mobley out of the cave that is 1,565 feet deep at its lowest point.

Mobley hobbled when there was space to stand upright and was carried or slid on stretchers elsewhere. A doctor with her in the cave gave her painkillers.

"Emily moved along at a very slow and steady pace" with rescuers always at least one step ahead of her, said Steve Sontag, who coordinated rigging of ropes inside the cave.

"We'd do a dry run with a real person so when Emily reached a particular problem we could briefly explain it . . . and then it was clip her on and go," said Sontag, a member of the Albuquerque Mountain Rescue Team.

The cave in a remote area of the park is closed to the general public. The National Park Service lets a limited number of experienced cavers in to explore and map it. Mobley was part of a mapping expedition.

by CNB