← Real Survival Stories
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- [00:02]
Kaley Cuoco
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- [00:27]
Priceline Voiceover
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- [00:34]
Narrator
It's Sunday, Sept. 16, 2018, in the Arabica massif, a mountain range in Russian occupied Georgia. These towering limestone formations are blanketed in lush woodland. Their snow tipped peaks loom over the serene waters of the Black Sea, which fans out into the distance. But Arabica's greatest natural feature is below the surface. Veryovkina. Officially the deepest cave in the world. From its opening in the mountains, Veryovkina drops straight down a startling 2.2km or more than 7200ft It's a vast vertical chasm right through the heart of the mountain range. Deep down is a kingdom of slender passageways, echoey caverns and immense darkness. And it's in this world that 38 year old British photographer Robbie Schoenberg has spent the past two weeks he's here documenting the work of a Russian caving team. He's captured images of the stunning green pools of water at the bottom, the jutting rock formations, the glistening limestone walls. He's even visited Veryovkina's terminal sump, the deepest point in the deepest cave. Right now though, on Sunday morning, Robbie's tucking into his breakfast. He and the Russian cavers are huddled under a blue tarpaulin, chowing down in the light of their head torches. Over the past week, Robbie's grown used to Veryovkina's Camp 3, located on a horizontal plateau 1900 meters below the surface. By caving standards, it's pretty luxurious, with a high ceiling and soft brown sand blanketing the ground. The cavers have made themselves at home here, hanging their kit up to dry on washing lines strung over their heads. Robbie's photographic equipment, cameras, lights, tripods and more is spread out all around the cave. The atmosphere is laid back. Relax until the radio fizzes into life. It's a warning for Camp 3 from a pair of cavers up in Camp 2. 700 odd meters above them, there is a flood pulse on its way down through the cave system. Thousands of Gallons of water hurtling towards them with the force of a freight train. Robbie hears the rumble getting closer and closer. The walls of the cave begin. He rushes to the entrance of Camp 3 and looks up into Veryovkina's main vertical column, which stretches above.
- [03:47]
Robbie Schoenberg
First of all, we felt the wind. I'll never forget we felt the wind a couple of seconds earlier and then we saw this wall of white brown water just bursting out of the hole above us and it plummeted right past us very quickly. It filled the space of like 10 meter wide shaft and the water just disappeared into the pit beneath us and found its way down to the water table.
- [04:13]
Narrator
The sheer force of the waterfall is overwhelming. Robbie stands watching it, his mouth wide open. The furious brown liquid is roaring into a pit just below them where the water table lies. The saturated layer from which there's nowhere for the water to escape. If it doesn't stop flowing, the level will rise and rise and he and his colleagues are going to be trapped, not just underground, but underwater.
- [04:44]
Robbie Schoenberg
Drowning is my biggest fear, so I was terrified. The only way to stay alive was to get higher, and the only way to get high was to get on that rope in the waterfall and start climbing.
- [05:01]
Narrator
Ever wondered what you would do when disaster strikes? If your life depended on your next decision, could you make the right choice? Welcome to Real Survival Stories. These are the astonishing tales of ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations. People suddenly forced to fight for their lives. In this episode, we meet Robbie Schoen. The 38 year old is one of the world's top cave photographers. And in September 2018, he travels to Georgia to capture images of a true natural wonder. A cave so deep it takes four days to reach the bottom. But when water cascades into the underground system, Robbie will face a series of challenges beyond his worst nightmares. Soon he will find himself with literally inches of space in which to keep breathing.
- [05:58]
Robbie Schoenberg
We needed to have our mouth and our nose up in the roof in order to breathe. I think there was maybe 6 inches of airspace and the rest was brown, foamy water.
- [06:08]
Narrator
I'm John Hopkins from the Noiser Podcast Network. This is Real survival stories. It's 11 years earlier. September 2007. Robbie Shone is at a farmhouse in rural China near the ancient town of Tianxing. He's laid out his kit on the battered wooden table in front of him. Camera, SD cards, batteries. Prepping for a big adventure. The next morning, Robbie's in China to photograph an unusual geological phenomenon. The Miao Kang shaft, an unbroken 500 meter drop. If your rope snaps. That's a 10 second fall before you hit anything. He's hoping to get some spectacular images of the stunning striated rock disappearing into the blackness below. But Robbie and his team aren't the only ones exploring Miaokiang. A Russian group are also in town, led by a man called Pavel Demidov. Robbie's never worked with Russians before.
- [07:42]
Robbie Schoenberg
They have a reputation for being very strong and very tough. So we were a little bit wary. And I'll never forget the moment we met the leader, Pavel. Pavel Demidov.
- [07:56]
Narrator
Suddenly, the door to the farmhouse is flung open and in walks Pavel. He is almost a decade older than Robbie. He's tall, strong, muscular. His hair is cut short, almost shaved off completely with the image of a snow leopard carved into it. In short, he fits the intimidating stereotype to a T. But tonight, Pavel has come bearing gifts.
- [08:31]
Robbie Schoenberg
In each hand he held a bottle and he said, my name is Pavel and I drink vodka and champagne. And from then onwards, we realized that actually we had nothing to fear. These guys were just like us, you know.
- [08:47]
Narrator
For Robbie and Pavel, it's the start of a beautiful friendship, one that will last far beyond the trip to China.
- [08:55]
Robbie Schoenberg
I kept in touch with Pavel over the years and in 2017 he got in touch with me and said that a deep cave that the team had been working on in and Georgia had just broken the world depth record. Barry of Keener and he would love for me to come and photograph him. This is a great opportunity. It might be my only opportunity. So I said, yes, let's do it.
- [09:21]
Narrator
By now, Robbie is an established caver himself and one of the top cave photographers in the world. He first got the bug at Sheffield Hallam University when a rock climber friend took him down a cave in the Yorkshire Dales. His eyes were opened to a whole new subterranean landscape. As beautiful as it was strange, gorgeous, moss covered rock formations, underground waterfalls, otherworldly stalactites.
- [09:51]
Robbie Schoenberg
I'll never forget the experience. It was like love at first sight. This alien world was something that fascinated me. I'd never seen anything like it before and I'd totally forgotten about the daylight, the sunshine on the surface. I was now in the cave. I was now experiencing this underworld for the very first time. And I was hooked. And from then onwards I wanted to go caving all the time.
- [10:15]
Narrator
Officially, Robbie was supposed to be studying fine art, but his real passion was for photography. Unfortunately, photographing caves is a pretty niche speciality and none of his tutors were able to help him with it.
- [10:30]
Robbie Schoenberg
There was nobody at university that could teach me cave photography. It was all new to them and I wasn't on the photography course, so I would go downstairs to the photography floor and borrow old film cameras from the university and then I would take them into the caves in the Peak District, practicing lighting, because that's basically the main skill of cave photography is lighting. How do you light these spaces to make the caves look beautiful?
- [10:59]
Narrator
Eventually, through a process of trial and error, he learnt the tricks of the trade. And while he was honing his photography skills, he was developing as a climber as well. Before long, he'd qualified as a rope access technician, spending his long summer holidays working for a local firm that supplied climbers for jobs requiring rope skills.
- [11:24]
Robbie Schoenberg
You can go and work on places like the Dartford Crossing over the River Thames and, like, clean it or paint was great, it was great money, it was working with cavers and climbers. So the conversation was brilliant. It was exactly what I wanted. But most importantly is you could dip out from the industry and go on an expedition somewhere to like Malaysia or China on a caving expedition. I could practice my cave photography in the big, big caves of the world and then I could come back, make a phone call on like a Thursday and I could be back on the job on the Monday.
- [11:59]
Narrator
After graduating, Robbie continued this work as a rope technician, all the while building his photography portfolio, visiting the eerie ice caves of Mount Etna in Sicily, capturing the stunning crystals of New Mexico's Lechuquilla, and lighting up the precipitous interior of China's Miao Keng, meeting Pavel Demidov in the process. So by 2017, when Pavel asks him to come and capture Veryovkina, Robbie is well established as one of the foremost cave photographers in the world. His images have graced the pages of National Geographic magazine and he's appeared on TV numerous times. Plus, so far in his almost two decade career, he's avoided any serious danger.
- [12:48]
Robbie Schoenberg
I've been caving for 18, 19 years and I never really had any kind of incident in the cave. I had a lot of experience by this point. I was ready to tackle, you know, camping in a cave for over two weeks. That was not going to be a problem.
- [13:07]
Narrator
In September 2018, Robbie leaves his partner Gina behind in their home in Austria and sets off for Veryovkina. He'll be a part of a team of 10, eight Russians and two Englishmen. Robbie has secured funding from the National Geographic Society for him and his assistant, Jeff Wade, to document Pavel's latest expedition. But before they head underground, there's work to do at surface level. They meet up with the team at a camp in the Arabica Mountains just 10 minutes walk from the cave entrance. It's a picturesque spot. Looming peaks close in all around, green and white. You can even glimpse the gleaming shores of the Black Sea in the distance. But they aren't here to enjoy the view.
- [13:59]
Robbie Schoenberg
We spent about three days on the surface beforehand packing all of the gear because you can imagine two and a half weeks underground. We needed to carry a lot of food and it all had to be waterproofed. We had to take down the sleeping bags with gas cylinders for the stoves.
- [14:18]
Narrator
At the surface camp, surrounded by piles of small plastic wrapped packages, Robbie asks Pavel about the kind of conditions they can expect to find underground. Veryovkina is damp and prone to flooding during periods of heavy rainfall. On previous visits, Pavel has found plates and cutlery stuck to the walls and even the ceilings after a sudden deluge has come and gone. But he isn't worried. Even the lowest levels of the cave only ever fill up in winter. It's mid September. They should be fine. Robbie, however, isn't so sure.
- [15:00]
Robbie Schoenberg
This nagged me. This was on my mind and I remember speaking to Gina, my partner before I left. I was like, I've just got a bad feeling him to say that, like we know it floods to the ceiling. Gina, she works in climate change, she's a researcher, so she knows that our weather is changing, our climate is changing. We can get these freak weather storms on a regular basis any times of the year. We live with this conversation all the time. So I was going to Veryovkina with that at the back of my mind anyway.
- [15:31]
Narrator
Even for an experienced caver, Veryovkina is no walk in the underground park. As the team finally sets off laden with supplies and equipment, the challenge ahead becomes stark. The entrance series the stretch of narrow tunnels leading down from the surface is particularly hard going. An eight hour slog through rocky spaces too cramped to stand up in.
- [15:58]
Robbie Schoenberg
It's very tight, the walls are quite restrictive. It's not for the faint hearted. And of course we had all these bags of equipment. I had bags of photography equipment, bags of batteries, you know, to last the two and a half weeks. So all this had to get through these narrow spaces.
- [16:18]
Progressive Voiceover
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- [16:51]
Priceline Voiceover
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- [17:11]
Narrator
Meter by meter, the team make their way through the dark, dank tunnels. Robbie hugs his photographic equipment close, negotiating the twists and turns of the entrance series. At times, the cavers are forced to crawl on their bellies, squeezing through gaps barely large enough for the human frame. Thoughts of becoming stuck have to be pushed to one side. And eventually, after the best part of a day, the team emerge into an open chamber. They stretch their stiffened limbs, taking in the magnificent scene around them.
- [17:53]
Robbie Schoenberg
Once you've tackled the entrance series and you've got through that and you're now beneath the surface at minus 400, then you're away. You pop out at the head of a giant pitch which is like 160 meters of open space all the way down to Camp 1 at about minus 600.
- [18:16]
Narrator
From slowly scrambling through a claustrophobic maze, now it's time for a speedier vertical drop. Robbie shimmies into the dark abyss. He slides carefully down the ropes until his feet hit the ground. Soon the entire team has arrived at Camp One. It's here that they'll spend their first night in Veryovkina. After an energy sapping day, it's time for dinner. Pavel, it turns out, is not just team leader, but head of the catering department as well. He opens a bag and pulls out meals for the entire crew. Freeze dried. At his home back in Moscow, the provisions are compact, light to carry. All Pavel has to do is add hot water and voila, a hot dinner. But the Russians haven't just brought food with them.
- [19:18]
Robbie Schoenberg
Pavel and the team took down with them 100% alcohol and they would, they would wait until everybody is safely at a camp before they would open the alcohol and they would dilute it to that magic 40 proof and they would mix it with like berries or lemons. They would take lots of fresh lemons down to flavor the, the vodka. And Pavel insisted that we all drank three shots of vodka before we went to bed.
- [19:51]
Narrator
The temperature at Camp One is just three or four degrees above freezing. So the shots of vodka are a welcome warmer. It's not long before Robbie drifts off to sleep, well rested. The following morning, the team rise and set off again. They still have a long journey ahead of them.
- [20:15]
Robbie Schoenberg
The rest of the cave is quite, quite straightforward, relatively. But it still takes three days after that to get to the very bottom.
- [20:27]
Narrator
The route down to Camp 3, over a mile beneath the entrance, is not to be sniffed at. As recently as 2024, a less experienced climber tragically died traversing this stretch of very offina. But for Robbie and his companions, this kind of ropework feels almost second nature. And there's something meditative about the slow, steady rate of descent.
- [20:58]
Robbie Schoenberg
You're so involved, you're so captivated by the challenges of caving that you just forget about everything. All the worries in your day to day life, paying the bills, blah, blah, blah, all that goes out of your head and you're just concentrating on being in the cave and living that experience.
- [21:17]
Narrator
Still. When the group makes it to Camp 3, it's a welcome relief from a long vertical tunnel. There's a horizontal ledge off to the side which opens out into a high ceilinged sand strewn plateau. The perfect spot for the team to make camp, rest up and prepare themselves to explore the lowest levels. Perhaps the most dazzling sight down here is the Terminal sump, a beautiful oval pool at the very deepest point of the cave network. While two of the Russians swim in the bright green water, lighting it up with their torches, Robbie snaps an image of Pavel ascending from the depths, one foot planted on a wall of jet black limestone. Pavel's eyes are on the rope above him. There is a look of steely determination on his face. He looks every inch the action hero. Now in his mid-40s, Pavel is no longer the brash young man Robbie met in China a decade earlier. He's matured into a brave and thoughtful team leader.
- [22:36]
Robbie Schoenberg
And it was brilliant. We started taking photographs. We spent a week at the bottom camp, working our way through the lower sections, documenting the team and had a great time. It was brilliant. And I'd totally forgotten that we were, you know, two kilometers underground.
- [22:54]
Narrator
While Robbie and the others explore the wonders of veryovkina's lowest level. 2,000 meters above them, the weather has taken a turn for the worse.
- [23:05]
Robbie Schoenberg
There had been continuous rain for about a week after we left. And then on the penultimate day, the day before the flood, there was a hailstorm with hailstones the size of your thumbnail. So all that water that falls could find its way down into the tunnel to us, because there Is one main canyon leading down to the lowest point in Bay of Kuna.
- [23:41]
Narrator
A flood pulse occurs when a large quantity of water gradually builds up on the surface and then suddenly forces its way underground. A wild white water torrent moving with the force of a runaway train. For experienced cavers, they're a familiar hazard. As long as you don't get in the way of the deluge, they don't usually present too much of a problem. Within a few hours, sometimes even a few minutes, the flood will cease and the passageways will become navigable again. So when Robbie and his colleagues in Camp 3 learn that a pulse is on its way down to them, there isn't an instant need to be concerned. In fact, thanks to the cave's rudimentary communication network, they have about half an hour's warning to get well out of the way.
- [24:31]
Robbie Schoenberg
They had a communication system in operation from the surface down to the lowest camp. Two cavers from the team had left the day before up the ropes back up to Camp 2, where they were making their way out of the cave. They had to get back to Moscow for work. A huge flood pulse passed their camp. They got on the radio and they radioed down to us and they said, look, you know, a giant flood pulse has just passed us. We suggest you don't leave camp, wait until it hits you, and then you can monitor the situation.
- [25:04]
Narrator
It'll take a while for the flood pulse to reach them. It has a way to travel down from Camp 2. The team's best guess, 20 to 25 minutes. They return to their breakfast and wait patiently, listening out for the sound of rushing water. Sure enough, bang on cue, they hear it coming. A deep bellow, gradually growing louder.
- [25:32]
Robbie Schoenberg
We heard the sound of what I always describe as a freight train, like in the underground, slowly coming towards. You can hear it and it's like, what's that? It's like a rumbling sound, and then you realize what it is.
- [25:46]
Narrator
Robbie sets down his food and runs to the ledge overlooking the central canyon. It's here that the torrent of water will fall past them as it drops down to Veryovkina's lowest reaches. He peers up at the hole in the ceiling, where the climbing ropes disappear into the shaft above. It's their only way out of here.
- [26:09]
Robbie Schoenberg
First of all, we felt the wind. I'll never forget, we felt the wind a couple of seconds earlier. And then we saw this wall of white brown water just bursting out of the hole above us. And it plummeted right past us very quickly. It filled the space of like 10 meter wide shaft and the water just disappeared into the hip beneath us and found its way down to the water table.
- [26:40]
Priceline Voiceover
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- [26:42]
Robbie Schoenberg
Race the sails. Race the sails.
- [26:44]
Captain
Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching.
- [26:46]
Narrator
Over. Roger, wait.
- [26:49]
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- [27:41]
Narrator
Veryovkina is about 60 meters or 200ft below Camp 3. Once the flood reaches that level, there's only one place for the water to travel and that's back up. But it's still a decent distance beneath them. No need to panic and the pulse should pass soon enough. For the next few hours, the cavers continue to wait quietly monitoring the situation. Pavel and another member of his team called Andre, go to check on a nearby siphon a flooded section of cave. The Russians noted how high the water was in this particular spot before, so they should be able to get a good idea of how much the level is rising.
- [28:28]
Robbie Schoenberg
So they nipped down to have a look at this. And whilst they were gone, another team member, Peter, he went over to a small hole that we'd been spitting our toothpaste out into the and he looked down and I think he thought he could hear gurgling noise or something. There was nothing and he came back.
- [28:49]
Narrator
Meanwhile, Rob is doing his best to get on with his own work, capturing photographs of the people and the action. His gear is strewn out all over the rocky, sandy floor. Even now no one is overly worried about the flood pulse. The mood is alert but calm. But then a few minutes later, Peter returns to check on that little hole in the ground again. And this time what he sees is alarming.
- [29:23]
Robbie Schoenberg
I'll never forget the look on his face because he turned around and he looked at me first. And he was white. And I rushed over to see what he'd seen. And to my horror, within a few inches beneath the surface of this hole was brown water jostling and rising. There's foam and it was coming up so quickly.
- [29:44]
Narrator
In an instant the stakes have been raised. The water table isn't just creeping higher, it's racing upwards and seeping into Camp 3. Robbie turns to his assistant who is staring wide eyed at the bubbling, murky floodwater.
- [30:04]
Robbie Schoenberg
I looked at Jeff and said, look, you know, we need to leave right now. I looked at all of my photography gear that was just strewn out all over the campsite floor, quickly realized that I had no time to pack it away. I needed to race out of this cave. I needed to go up these ropes fast.
- [30:20]
Narrator
That's £10,000 worth of equipment he's leaving behind, an indication of the severity of the situation. Robbie does take a moment to salvage the photographs he's already taken, including the haunting shot of Pavel ascending from the terminal sump. He grabs the memory card out of his camera, seals it into a Ziploc bag and tucks it away inside his pocket. Then he bursts into action.
- [30:48]
Robbie Schoenberg
I needed to get dressed, I need to get my oversuit on. The dry suit, the harness, the helmet and light. Go, go, go.
- [30:57]
Narrator
With their Russian counterparts scrambling behind them, Robbie and Jeff flee the campsite, making their way to the ledge that overhangs the main canyon. Looking down, Robbie can clearly see the water beneath rising up to meet them.
- [31:12]
Robbie Schoenberg
To my horror again that the pit was now a lake. The waterfall was cascading into this brown lake only a meter beneath the traverse line, which had previously been like a 10 meter drop.
- [31:26]
Narrator
Time is running out from here. The only way is up. But the route to Camp 2 means climbing through the waterfall, a raging barrage of ice cold froth tumbling downwards with colossal froth force.
- [31:45]
Robbie Schoenberg
I didn't think about it. It was survival instinct. I, I, I put it down to the only way to stay alive was to get higher. And the only way to get high was to get on that rope in the waterfall and start climbing. I jumped on the rope, swung into the waterfall and just started climbing the rope as fast as I could. But the force of the water squashed my head into my shoulders a bit like a tortoise going into its shell. I had to tense up all the muscles in my neck.
- [32:09]
Narrator
As Robbie climbs, his body is pounded by the thundering flood pulse. Every sinew strains against the onslaught. He is ascending hand over hand, forcing his way up, fighting the water for every inch you can't even see where he's going.
- [32:26]
Robbie Schoenberg
I couldn't look up because it would have ripped my helmet off my head if I'd looked up. And that would have been my helmet and light lost. Game over.
- [32:39]
Narrator
Fortunately, the lip of Robbie's helmet creates a little space for him to suck in air as he climbs. His eyes fixed straight ahead of him, he makes it up to the top of the pitch, the point where he has to unclip himself from one rope and clip onto the next, freeing the bottom rope for Jeff to follow after him. It's the sort of maneuver that's second nature to an experienced climber, but he's never had to do it in circumstances like these. Robbie shouts down to Jeff, rope free. But it's unclear if his friend can hear him at all. All Robbie can do is keep moving upwards. He's climbing for his life now.
- [33:23]
Robbie Schoenberg
I was racing up the ropes as fast as I could because I was fearing the worst. I thought that the water table was rising faster than I was climbing and eventually it was just going to swallow me up.
- [33:35]
Narrator
Finally, Robbie is almost out of the waterfall's direct path. After over 100 meters of climbing, it's just a few more inches up. His ropes rise up and away from the water with an exhausted final heave, he clambers onto a dry ledge. The water continues to crash down right next to him, but for the moment at least, he can breathe easily again. He can hear Jeff following close behind now.
- [34:04]
Robbie Schoenberg
Jeff caught me up, he was shouting, slow down, slow down. And we just stood on this ledge for maybe. Well, it felt like eternity, but it was probably only about a minute.
- [34:14]
Narrator
The two Englishmen have made it out of the waterfall, but there's no sign of their Russian companions. Four of the team were still in Camp 3 when Robbie and Jeff fled. But Pavel and Andrei were even deeper underground, inspecting one of Veryovkina's lowest siphons. Right now, it's unclear whether any of them are still alive. It's a stomach churning weight as Robbie and Jeff peer into the chasm below. And then at last, Robbie spots them emerging from the depths, soaked through and utterly spent. One by one, the Russians clamber up onto the ledge. 1, 2, 3, 4. That's everyone accounted for apart from Andrei and their leader Pavel. It's hard not to fear the worst.
- [35:13]
Robbie Schoenberg
When we'd left the lowest camp, Pavel and Andre were still away. You know where, where they were, we had no idea. There was no way they could have survived. It was like madness, utter madness to imagine that they'd survived that.
- [35:26]
Narrator
A maudlin silence falls over the group. Heads are bowed. But then, looking out over the edge, Robbie sees the faint glimmer of a headlamp. Andre emerges from the waterfall before, last but not least, sweating, panting and grunting, Pavel emerges as well. He's got quite a story to share. As team leader, Pavel was the last out of Camp 3 and he barely escaped with his life.
- [36:01]
Robbie Schoenberg
The water completely filled the chamber. The tent was all gone. Everything was destroyed. He was in the roof, maybe a foot of airspace, and he tried to get over to the rope, I remember him telling me, and he got spat out by the whirlpool and he grazed his face and he had another go and he eventually got to the rope with only seconds remaining, and he climbed up.
- [36:26]
Narrator
Against the odds, all eight members of the team have escaped Camp 3, but they haven't survived this subterranean flood yet. There's still some way to go. And there is a new problem. The route ahead, a narrow horizontal tunnel, is blocked by something even more impassable than the waterfall.
- [36:53]
Robbie Schoenberg
The way ahead of us was completely submerged. It was a horizontal passage that was completely full of water and there was no way we could go any higher.
- [37:01]
Narrator
The climbers will just have to wait it out. Eventually, the flow of water will dry up. When it does, there should be just enough airspace to shuffle through the passage, but it's impossible to know how long they'll have to wait. And in the meantime, the waterfall continues to cascade downwards. If the water level beneath carries on rising before they can escape, there will only be one outcome. With no other options, they make camp for the night on their ledge and wait.
- [37:37]
Robbie Schoenberg
Those 16 hours were hell. The waiting. I convinced myself that I was going to die. We were trapped.
- [37:46]
Narrator
The mood is leaden, but the Russians remain stoical and clamber into the tent for the night. Pavel invites Robbie and Jeff to join them. But right now, Robbie can't bear to sit still. Instead, he paces up and down the ledge, just meters from the precipice.
- [38:06]
Robbie Schoenberg
I feel like out of the whole team, it hit me the most. I reacted the worst for sure. I dealt with it the worst out of the lot of us. There was no vodka, so we couldn't even get drunk and then die. You know, we were always reminded of our situation by the thundering force of the waterfall, the water which was passing through the rock next to us. You know, we were safe, we were dry where we were, but the noise, and you could almost feel the walls vibrating. I was following the rope all the Way down to the bottom to where my light beam ended and just waiting to see brown foaming water appear. And that was the scariest moment, waiting to see that that was the worst point. Because when, when I was climbing the ropes from the bottom camp up to this point, I was just full of adrenaline, full of. I've got to get higher. I've got to get higher. I wasn't thinking much, but now I was thinking. I had time to think about Gina. I had time to think about my parents. I had time to think about my life at this point, you know, I didn't know how long I was going to be thinking about my life, but I was thinking about all those things, those people that I weren't going to see ever again. Those moments. And drowning is my biggest fear. So I was terrified.
- [39:33]
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- [40:05]
Captain
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- [40:33]
Narrator
It's been the longest night of Robbie's life. But as he once again paces along the rocky ledge, he notices something. The rush of water. It's beginning to die down.
- [40:48]
Robbie Schoenberg
The noise slowly dropped and the water table hadn't appeared. Okay, maybe we are going to survive this. Maybe, maybe it is going to be okay after all. I'm not thinking about my life ending and all these horrible thoughts anymore. That was a point where we all thought, okay, it's going to get better now. We're going to find a way out. It's going to be okay.
- [41:14]
Narrator
With the waterfall dried up, the team can finally continue to Camp 2. But despite the renewed optimism, they are now facing a test possibly beyond anything they've yet encountered. They must traverse a 60 meter horizontal passage which is still almost entirely filled with water.
- [41:36]
Robbie Schoenberg
To get through it, you have to get on your hands and knees. That's how big it is. It's not very high. You need to be on your hands and knees to go through it.
- [41:44]
Narrator
After a couple more hours, the team feels the tunnel has dried up enough for them to pass through. But only just a tiny gap of air has appeared between the water and the ceiling of the passage. Robbie centers himself. Deep breath, keep calm. Here we go. As he begins to crawl through the tunnel on his hands and knees, he's almost completely submerged in opaque, foamy water. There's only about six inches of air.
- [42:20]
Robbie Schoenberg
It was just passable for us, providing we tilted our head sideways and we could breathe by following the roof. We needed to have our mouth and our nose up in the roof in order to breathe the airspace.
- [42:33]
Narrator
It's a grueling gauntlet. But slowly, steadily, a line of men creep their way forwards, chins always angled upwards. Finally, after 60 brutal meters, Robbie emerges from the end of the tunnel. They're out. Safely at Camp 2, the team settles down to a much needed meal. But it's too soon for anyone to count their chickens. Just as everyone starts to relax, they're given a startling reminder of the hazards all around. Team leader Pavel is cooking the dinner as usual, when there is a strange cracking noise bouncing off the cavernous walls. A small boulder has begun to loosen from the ceiling of the cave. Then, quite suddenly, it dislodges, striking Pavel on its way down. A crunch, a streak of blood, and a cry of pain. Everybody rushes to their leader. Thankfully, he's all right. It's a second close shave for the Russian. An inch closer and the rock would have directly hit his head.
- [43:49]
Robbie Schoenberg
He wasn't badly hurt. He had, like a cut to his face, but he was okay. But I remember turning to Jeff, who was sat next to me, and I just quietly said to him, death is still in this cave. He's after one of us.
- [44:05]
Narrator
Over the next two days, Robbie and the others continue their climb back to the surface, back up the central column along the treacherous entrance series ropes, readjustments, rests, restarts, until finally Robbie senses a change in the air.
- [44:26]
Robbie Schoenberg
I could smell vegetation. At this point, I knew that we'd made it out of the cave. I remember getting to the top of the ropes and I stopped and sat there in my harness and uncontrollably, I just burst into tears. Like I was hit by this wave of emotion because I recognized the fact that I'd done it. We'd all survived.
- [44:45]
Narrator
It's nighttime when the weary group of men finally set foot on the surface. Then one by one, they walk the short distance from the cave entrance to the nearby campsite.
- [44:59]
Robbie Schoenberg
I could see the lights at camp and I remember seeing a blood red moon sinking over the Black Sea. And it was just above the horizon and I stood watching it slowly descend into the ocean. Then the stars grew out and just slowly went down to camp in a daze.
- [45:24]
Narrator
At the campsite, the cavers toast their survival in the traditional Russian way.
- [45:35]
Robbie Schoenberg
There was some bottles of vodka, tequila. We start laughing and joking as the alcohol sets in. I remember I called Gina. I walked up a hill to get some signal and she said to me afterwards, she said, you know, you were a very matter of fact on the phone. You were very calm and precise and you were telling me what had happened and that you'd survived and it was all okay. But she said, she later said that when I called her again back at the coast like three days later, it was like that near death experience had sunk in. And apparently I was a nervous wreck on the phone. I was emotional, I cried again. So it didn't hit me immediately, but it hit me a few days later.
- [46:18]
Narrator
As Robbie readjusts to life back home with his partner in Austria, it soon becomes clear that his experiences in Veryovkina have left a lasting impact. He is tormented by visions of drowning deep underground.
- [46:34]
Robbie Schoenberg
I probably should have seen help. I spent three months, nearly three months getting drunk every night because I couldn't go to sleep being conscious. I couldn't go to sleep being sober, being aware of my existence because I would lie in bed thinking of water catching me up and lapping by my legs. And then within a minute or two it was up by my neck and then it would swallow me whole and I was going to drown. I had this, this feeling that no, I wasn't alive. I'd actually died down in the bottom of the cave. And all of our bodies were just at the bottom. And I was now in ghost form. I was now a ghost.
- [47:19]
Narrator
Slowly, Robbie begins to recover his mental health. He's able to sleep better, to process what happened. But he says his brush with death will never fully leave him.
- [47:32]
Robbie Schoenberg
I'm okay now, but mentally it's altered me for sure. For better, for worse. I don't know, I think it's made me a lot more aware of the fragility of being alive and how death can take us at any moment. I now look at my caving project slightly differently. I don't focus on the difficult, challenging, more dangerous projects like, you know, the bottom of area of Kina, for example. To be honest, I have no desire to ever go back to the bottom of area of Kina or the next deepest cave, you know, in my lifetime. I'm sure there'll be another cave that breaks the world depth record. I'm not on that trip. That's for somebody else, right?
- [48:23]
Narrator
Despite his newfound caution, Robbie still has unfinished business with Veryovkina. His job on the 2018 expedition was to document the cave with his photographs. But the only photos he brought back with him were were those of the lowest levels, including his magnificent image of Pavel ascending from the terminal sump. He'd been planning to photograph the rest of the cave on the way back up before he was forced to leave all his equipment behind in Camp 3. A year after barely escaping with his life, Robbie is back there to finish the job along with Jeff and Pavel.
- [49:05]
Robbie Schoenberg
We didn't go down to the bottom. That was something I made quite clear to Bertra. I didn't want to go to the bottom and we didn't need to go to the bottom. You know, we'd got all the pictures so we went down to I think a thousand meters or something like that and then photographed the rest of the cave from there back to the surface.
- [49:23]
Narrator
Robbie and Pavel's bond is stronger than ever after their ordeal in the world's steepest cave. And together they've shared their story at public events.
- [49:33]
Robbie Schoenberg
I love that. I love standing in front of an audience now. I didn't know how I would react to that. It's something I never did. I was a little bit scared, a little bit intimidated about being on stage. It turns out that it's actually good fun.
- [49:51]
Narrator
Unlike Robbie, Pavel shows no signs of slowing down. He even returns to Camp 3 of Veryovkina. It's a sobering sight. Clothes, sleeping bags and photographic equipment strewn all around. Many of the items are embedded in the ceiling. Later, Pavel shows Robbie what he found in the cave.
- [50:15]
Robbie Schoenberg
And I was presented with a load of gear that they'd salvaged. They'd been down a few weeks earlier and managed to salvage my primaloft jacket that I had left, some radios, a walkie talkie. The walkie talkie still works. I still use it.
- [50:34]
Narrator
Over the next two years, Pavel supervises a number of safety improvements at Veryovkina. But all the measures in the world can't guarantee a caver's welfare. Even one as experienced and level headed as Pavel Demidov. In August 2020, Robbie's friend is exploring a new cave in the Arabica massif, not far from Veryovkina.
- [50:58]
Robbie Schoenberg
He was only, I don't know, 200, 300 meters underground when he was crushed by a big rock fall. And his teammate had to move the rocks out of the way in order for him to get past to reach the surface and call the. Not the rescue, the recovery, I guess, because he realized that Pavel had died in the rockfall.
- [51:24]
Narrator
With the help of the international caving community, Robbie and Gina raise over £5,000 to pay for Pavel's body to be recovered. At the head of their fundraising page sits the image of Pavel ascending from the pool of Veryovkina's deepest point. A look of heroic determination on his face.
- [51:48]
Robbie Schoenberg
Pavel was, in my opinion, the greatest cave explorer of our generation. He was an incredible leader. He was incredibly tough and strong, but he was also incredibly kind and generous and supportive. It's a big loss. It's a big loss to cave exploration.
- [52:09]
Narrator
Robbie and Gina, meanwhile, have embarked on adventures of a different as parents to 4 year old Maddie. And in a way, it's all thanks to Veryovkina.
- [52:22]
Robbie Schoenberg
It did change my life. I remember when we got back home, I told Gina that I was ready to start a family. My life is very different now. Maddie is in it. That's a direct result of Verovkina, I think. I mean, I think about it often. I must admit, psychologically, the very Ovkino experience changed me for sure. I'm more aware of my existence. Maybe it was a good thing it happened.
- [52:58]
Narrator
In the next episode, we meet Mark Lyons. In November 2015, the keen cyclist has entered La Ruta de los Conquistadores, an epic mountain bike race through the heart of Costa Rica. It's a grueling endeavor regarded by many as the toughest competition of its kind. And Mark will soon learn why it has such a fearsome reputation. When he slips and falls during a river crossing, the father of two will be swept downstream for miles deep into the jungle. That's next time on Real Survival Stories. Listen to Mark's story today without waiting a week by subscribing to NoiserPlus.
- [53:47]
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- [54:16]
Home Depot Voiceover
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