It's all fun and games until somebody gets hurt...

I can't get over the story about the guy that died in Nutty Putty. Cousin Glen called the day before to tell me that someone was stuck in there, and I assumed that it was just some big guy that was trapped in the birth canal again and they'd have him out before too long. When I woke up Thanksgivng day and started looking through the news stories on CNN, I was shocked to see that the top story was about a man who had died inside of Nutty Putty. It just didn't even occur to me that he'd actually die down there. The idea that they still couldn't even pry his body out was horribly disturbing to me. After thinking about it for a long time I've concluded that there are a couple of reasons why this story bugs me so much:

1. It's one thing to read about someone being trapped or stuck somewhere, and imagining what that must be like. The problem here is that I have been in Nutty Putty, and therefore I don't have to stretch my imagination very far. Unfortunately I already have quite a bit of knowledge about that cave. I know what it looks like, how it smells, and worst of all how dark and eerily silent it can be in there. (I went in with a small group one time and we all decided to flip of our lights and sit in the quiet just to see what it would be like. I think that lasted all of about 15 seconds before everyone became very uncomfortable and started talking and turning lights back on, myself included.) I think that it would be far less disturbing if I had to use a little more creativity to imagine the setting for this tragedy.

2. I went in the cave multiple times, and on numerous occasions I watched people I was with, or people from other groups do things that I deemed to be ill-advised. On at least one occasion there was a member of my party who became temporarily snagged in a very small space and one of the other guys with us had to tug on him and drag him back out. Although this is someone that I would not ordinarily consider to be of below average intelligence, I remember thinking that he was basically an idiot for wedging himself in such a tight spot in the first place. Additionally I also remember thinking that if it had been me that had been stuck somewhere, even if it had only been a minute or two, I would be completely panicked. This guy didn't seem to be all that alarmed. After thinking about this I've decided that it was only a matter of time before someone wedged themselves into a spot so tight that they couldn't be extracted, and it's not out of the realms of possibilities that it could have just as likely been a friend of mine, which disturbs me.

I was starting to forget about this story, and put it out of my mind when I read the new article today about them sealing up the cave. I read through all of the comments afterwards and I'm astonished by the number of people who seem to be flat out angry about the cave being sealed. I kind of see their point, because I thoroughly enjoyed spelunking, but this story has pretty much ruined it for me, and I have no desire to ever go back inside. Apparently not everyone feels that way.