Easegill

A woman had to be airlifted to hospital after collapsing underground in Britain’s biggest cave system.

The Clapham-based Cave Rescue Organisation was called to the incident on Saturday after a party of potholers reported a member of their party was having fits and going in and out of consciousness. 32 members of the volunteer rescue team went to the woman’s aid in the Easegill Caverns in the western Dales.

Two of her companions went to the Wretched Rabbit entrance of the system to raise the alarm, while the rest of the caving party helped to get her towards the entrance. The group included one potholer on her first caving trip. CRO rescuers reached the woman, who was still having fits in the cavern, and carried her to the surface.

The CRO team called for an RAF helicopter to evacuate the woman from the fellside. A Sea King from RAF Boulmer, which had been on a rescue mission in the Lake District and was refuelling at Carlisle, was with the casualty within 35 minutes and one of the CRO’s doctors accompanied the caver, believed to be from Manchester, to the Royal Lancaster Infirmary.

CRO underground controller Matt Burke, of Kendal, praised both the patient’s own party and his CRO colleagues. He said: “The whole incident went really well. When a casualty’s companions can get her moving, underground, it’s much easier for us to maintain that momentum and keep everyone in a positive frame of mind.

“The fact that they were exhausted by the time they got out, shows how hard they worked. Our own members really got it together; I can only describe it as ’slick’. Then, on regaining the surface, to discover that the RAF would be here in only a few minutes was the best news we could have hoped for.”

The CRO was also alerted to three other incidents over the weekend.

A group was reported overdue in a cave in Kingsdale on Friday, but surfaced unharmed as a party of CRO rescuers arrived to investigate.

Similarly, a group of cavers feared trapped on Sunday in the Gaping Gill system made their way out safely and, the same day, reported shouts for help on Pen-y-ghent proved to be a false alarm.

It is believed the shouts may have been from a group with dogs hunting foxes on the hillside.

Despite its name, the Cave Rescue Organisation also conducts fell rescues in the western part of the Yorkshire Dales.