I'm very sorry to hear about the loss of your leg, I imagine other members will be along shortly to chime in. Some of the original posters in this thread are no longer around, not every day we get a post on a thread that was started 13 years ago. If you don't mind me asking, fave you been able to fine employment after the loss of your leg? Did you lose the whole leg, or only part? Were they able to sort you out with a prosthetic?
I came from a rescue background before tree climbing and had seen some pretty rough stuff, pulled out a few dead bodies but the worst thing was retrieving the still alive ones form caves and mountains. Saw some pretty gruesome things but found it didn't affect me that much. The worst experience I ever had which shook me was being in an incident where we needed rescuing. I went off for a vertical caving weekend with two other very experienced cavers in south korea who were surveying a cave as contractors for the government. I'm not an experienced caver but had many years rock climbing and industrial access under my belt. It wasn't my cup of tea but I toughed it out. Fixed ropes and descended many pits, then through crawlspaces, some so narrow you had to worm through them, caves, more pits, crawlspaces, more fixed ropes untill we reached a chockstone floor. By that time we'd been going about 8 hours and had descended somewhere over 1000 vertical feet. Two of us were still on rope and the last guy had unclipped to inspect the floor when the keystone shifted and he went with the floor, falling so far he screamed twice. We couldn't see him, and he wasn't responding so we had to make a decision. The other guy had no rescue experience and was seriously freaking out. I told him I'd go down under the still unstable floor and see if the other guy was still alive, and that under no circumstances should he come down. If anything happened he was to return to the surface and get a rescue going, seeing as he was the more experienced caver and likely to be much faster at ascending.
Got down there expecting the worst but found the guys body and he was still alive. Brought him round and checked him over, a fridge sized boulder had turned one of his legs to soup, there were no identifiable bones between the thigh and the lower calf. Talked with the other guy and told him he'd have to go up and get help while I stayed. Gave him a real good talking to that he had to go slow and be careful, not take any stupid risks.
I was in that cave With the injured guy for almost two days. Most of that time was spent in the dark to conserve batteries and we didn't have a lot of food. It's real cold and wet in a cave. I gave him most of my clothes, we had no sleeping bags or anything, just thermals and clothes under waterproof overalls. That's a real long time to sit and wonder if anyone is coming back. It was the longest couple days in my life, trying to keep the other guys moral up and not lose it myself. I'm not ashamed to say I actually cried when the rescue team showed up. I was just so emotionally exhausted.
It wasn't great news though. There is no cave rescue team in south korea. The guy had made it up double quick and assembled a team of crack cavers, 15-20 guys, a tonne of gear, rescue stretcher, and one of the cavers happened to be a doctor. No EMT's or government rescue workers will enter a cave there. The momentary joy was very quickly sobered when the doctor assessed the situation. He spoke pretty quietly and frankly, and said to the guy "the good news is I've brought morphine. The bad news is there's only so much I can give you. It's going to take a few days for us to drag you out of here. I'll let you decide when you want the morphine."
The only really vivid memory I have of the next couple days was the first half hour. The rescue stretcher was complex and came with all kinds of straps, foam blocks, attachment points etc. 5 or 6 guys slowly strapped him into it, getting familiar with it. Once he was fully strapped in he needed to piss so we tipped the board and I unzipped him. Then they started the first of many hauls. The rest of it is just a blur of darkness and screams for me. They had to unstrap him at the top of each pit, drag/push him through the crawlspaces often with ropes. He had to drag himself also while if there was space someone would try to push his leg. Then strapped to the board again.
They got him on a chopper straight away. They thought they'd save the leg, but after many operations and many months he lost it. He was a young guy in his 20's and also ended up losing his (promising) job and his fiance. Some stories just don't have a happy ending. Needless to say I've not ever entered a cave since, that was about 15 years ago.
