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- [00:01]
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- [00:33]
Narrator
It'S early morning on August 7, 1977, on the verdant slopes of the French Pyrenees, not far from the Spanish border. The sun's first rays are starting to glow. Pale streams of yellow break through moody storm clouds, lighting up the mountainsides to reveal a blanket of greenery scattered with puddles and rocks. The warmth of the day seems to bring everything on the earth's surface to life. But hundreds of meters underground, there is a cavernous world where sunlight is a stranger. Deep beneath the Pyrenees lies an elaborate cave system known as the Goufray de la Pierre Saint Martin. Winding for more than 50 miles, its limestone walls are jagged and angular. Its passageways twist and turn like a coiled snake. Winds blow through every crevice. Water seeps in from neighboring streams, and everywhere you look you're greeted by darkness. Far inside this subterranean labyrinth, 24 year old caver dick Willis is climbing. He's moving slowly upwards, trying to escape an increasingly alarming situation. Dick's gloved hands, rigid and numb with cold, claw around in the pitch black, tracing indentations on the wet rocks. His feet slip and slide as he tries to balance his weight. All around him, underground waterfalls cascade down, pelting in with sharp, icy torrents. Dick's friends Andy and Paul are climbing somewhere below him. The roar of the water makes communication between the trio impossible, and the cave's gloom renders the pair invisible. Dick's hands find a narrow gap in the rocks above, and with great effort he squeezes his body through. He clings to the rope that guides him, a literal lifeline. Eventually, the rope leads onto a ledge where he can pause to catch his breath.
- [02:58]
Dick Willis
I got up to the ledge and I turned around and I shouted down, rope free. Which is the indication the next person had come up and it was just his maelstrom of spray and the thunderous water and I couldn't hear anything.
- [03:16]
Narrator
Dick calls out again, yelling into the blackness, but there's still no response from his friends. Carefully, so as not to lose his balance, he turns his head toward the passage through which he's just scrambled. His torchlight dances off its walls, illuminating the dark green algae on either side and the crystal clear liquid rushing down. But there's just no sign of Andy or Paul. Why aren't they answering?
- [03:53]
Dick Willis
I have absolutely no idea how long I was there. None. And I was shouting rope free. And there was no response.
- [04:02]
Narrator
His friends could be in desperate trouble. But Dick is freezing cold, hundreds of meters underground, and the water around him is rising by the second. Turning back in these conditions could be fatal. All alone in the deep, Dick has an impossible decision to make between his own life and those of his friends. 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 Dick Willis. In the summer of 1977, he joins a British expedition exploring the Goufre de la Pierre Saint Martin in France, known at that time as the deepest cave in the world. But while Dick, Andy and Paul are far underground, an electrical storm breaks out above, sending water flooding into the cave. The race to escape is on.
- [05:28]
Dick Willis
I start going up the 45 degree cascade. Andy, who was behind me, saw a wall of water coming down, what we call a flood pulse. So this wall of water came down and over me and then down towards where he and Paul were.
- [05:43]
Narrator
The route out is flooding. And in the confusion and claustrophobia, Dick is separated from Andy and Paul. As the minutes pass, it seems increasingly possible that they won't all see the sun again.
- [05:57]
Dick Willis
This was the most God awful place because it's very windy and the water's 2 degrees and it's not a place you want to be, really.
- [06:07]
Narrator
I'm John Hopkins from the Noiser Podcast Network. This is Real survival stories. It's August 6, 1977. The midday sun warms the lush greenery of the French Pyrenees. An undulating patchwork of forests, rocky outcrops and sparkling lagoons. High up on one of the steepest slopes, where an unseasonably chilly wind swirls, a group of 20 people are gathered. They are stationed outside the entrance to an immense cave believed to be the deepest in the world. These men are here on a mission, one that will take them to the lowest known point within the cave. And if they're lucky, perhaps even further.
- [07:22]
Dick Willis
In 1977, I was invited to go with an ulcer expedition University of Leeds, to the Goufrepierre Saint Martin, the French Pyrenees, which was at the time the world's deepest cave. They'd been a year or two years before and they'd bottomed the cave, but they'd run out of gear. Other conditions were absolutely dreadful, so they couldn't pursue beyond the end of the cave. So in 77 they decided to go back.
- [07:52]
Narrator
The cavers are chatting and laughing as they pass around flasks of hot coffee and handfuls of high energy snacks. Three of them, Dick Willis, Paul Everett and Andy Evis are preparing to enter the cave. In the next few minutes, the men pull on their wetsuits and boots, then shrug waterproof oversuits on top. Though it's dry out here on the mountainside, experience has taught them that within the cave, conditions will be vastly different. Next, they strap on helmets fitted with torches around their necks. They sling emergency bike lights. Their gear isn't exactly high tech, but it'll have to do. The gloves on their hands are rubber marigolds, like the ones you'd use to do the dishes. Dick twists the light on his head torch to test its beam and a bright white glow shines on the grass. He nods to Andy and Paul and after some words of encouragement from the rest of the team, they're ready to enter the cave. Together, they approach the foreboding steel doors that guard the entrance. Even though they're about to enter a tight, twisting underground world, 24 year old Dick doesn't show a trace of nerves. After all, he's a seasoned caver by now. He's had years of honing his craft, ever since his first taste at university.
- [09:26]
Dick Willis
I joined the diving club in those days and I made this wetsuit. I'd done all my pool training. I was about to go on my first open water dive and then I pulled a muscle in my back. So I was sat in my room feeling exceedingly grumpy and a mate of mine came in and said, what's wrong with you? And I explained and he said, well, we're going caving this afternoon. You've got a wetsuit. Go caving. So I went caving and I went down Sweden's Hole in Mendip with another complete novice and three or four members of the caving club. And I loved it from the first moment I got in the dark, it was just fantastic. And on the way out I said to my friend, this is fantastic, isn't it? And he looked at me and he said, I am never, ever, ever going to do this again. And he never did, but I did. And it quite simply took over my life.
- [10:12]
Narrator
Seizing every opportunity thrown his way, Dick joined expeditions to far flung corners of the world and made friends and memories to last a lifetime.
- [10:23]
Dick Willis
I managed to blag my way onto a big expedition to Papua New guinea in 1975. A friend of mine introduced me to it, got me on the trip as a biologist. For some reason they took me and I went on the trip. And I never did any biology, I just went caving all the time and it was fantastic. It was completely life changing experience.
- [10:45]
Narrator
Dressed in handmade wetsuits and packed off with basic non specialist gear. There was always a high element of risk in exploring these unknown underground worlds. But luckily for Dick and his caving team, his university studies in geology provided an intimate understanding of these subterranean enigmas.
- [11:08]
Dick Willis
So most caves are in limestone. Limestone is formed by the shells of billions of small sea creatures which over millennia die. And it formed to the bottom of the sea and it forms a sludge. And as the sludge builds up, the weight of the sludge on top compresses the stuff at the bottom into rock. Then sometime in the future, the rock movements because the surface of the earth is constantly moving. Force that rock up to the surface and in the process, it may crack and break. And when it's at the surface, it's exposed to rain. And as the rain falls out of the sky, it picks up carbon dioxide from the air and from the soil and that makes it slightly acidic. And that acid can eat away at the limestone. So the acid water gets into the limestone through the cracks and flows through it, gradually eating it away. And when it hits the junction between two limestone beds, it may form a little tube, a little channel. And as long as that channel is completely full of water, the water will eat away at the sides of the channel all the way around. So it gets bigger and bigger as a tube. When they can get 100ft more than 100ft across, 30, 40 meters, maybe even more really big.
- [12:22]
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- [13:29]
Narrator
In 1977, two years after his life altering expedition to Papua New Guinea, Dick caught wind of a British caving trip to the French Pyrenees. A team from Leeds University were organizing a mission to the Gouffrey de la Pierre St. Martin, otherwise known as the PSM. Dick wanted in.
- [13:53]
Dick Willis
In those days, that particular cave wasn't just the deepest cave in the world, but it had the world's biggest underground chamber, a thing called La Salvierna.
- [14:04]
Narrator
Meandering for 86 km, the PSM is a hidden treasure. The quaint village that sits on the surface gives no clue as to what lies below. The PSM's largest chamber, La Salle Verna, stretches 250 meters wide and rises 195 meters tall. Meanwhile, the cave's lowest known point sits roughly 1,400 meters beneath its entrance. In 1975, the team from Leeds attempted to push to break through the PSM's alleged endpoint. They were unsuccessful. But undeterred, two years later, they're back. This time with Dick Willis in tower, ready to push for glory again. They arrive in the village of Lyc at the beginning of August 1977. Before embarking on their mission, the team spend a number of days relaxing in the rural French settlement, drinking in local bars and snapping photos of the landscape. But taking in their surroundings, some potential issues start to present themselves. Local water levels seem high and the saturated ground squelches beneath their feet. Ominous storm clouds form in the blue skies above.
- [15:34]
Dick Willis
We run out, we drove there and we all met in a village called Leek at the bottom of the mountain. And it was exceedingly wet. The river was really high. We but that's how it was. We carry our stuff up to a hut on the side of the mountain.
- [15:49]
Narrator
Set up in their mountainside shack, the team start prepping the first sections of the cave, making them ready for climbing and descent. And any concerns about the weather or water levels starts to recede.
- [16:05]
Dick Willis
So we start making our way down this, fixing bolts at the top of each pitch, attaching ropes going down. That process took a couple of days. As we were going down it, the water levels were going down as well. And we were young and enthusiastic and stupid because we should have really paid more attention.
- [16:24]
Narrator
Finally, on August 6th, it's time to properly explore the PSM. Between them, Dick, Andy and Paul share a world of caving experience. But this will push them further and deeper than ever before. With the sun at its height, they zip up their wetsuits, tighten their hoods and helmets and switch on their torches. Then they wrench open the squeaking steel doors. The cave's entrance is a jungle of jagged rocks and immovable boulders. A small stream splashes along the ground, water bouncing off the limestone. Glimmers of light seep in through cracks, casting giant shadows as the men enter. With the entrance already lined with ropes by the team, Dick, Andy and Paul descend the first few pitches of the cave with ease. Andy leads the way, clipping his harness onto the ropes as he goes. The layout constantly changes as the darkness intensifies. Sometimes the ground is flat enough and the ceiling tall enough for all three men to walk upright. Though they clutch the ropes for extra balance as their feet slide over the rocks, the beams from their head torches swing with every stride. This is second nature to them. But every now and then a stomach churning drop reminds them of the dangers involved.
- [18:06]
Dick Willis
As I was beginning my caving career, there was a move in the activity to move to what's called single rope techniques. So you don't take the ladder, you just take the rope and you fix the rope to the side of the cave and hang it down the shaft, down the vertical section and then you slide down it using a friction device which is attached to a harness. And when you get to the bottom, you can reclimb it using ratchet devices attached to your harness and the rope. You obviously have to be very careful about how you hang the rope because if you hang it so it rubs on the rock, then with your weight on it, it can abrade and break and you've only got one rope.
- [18:51]
Narrator
The trio make their way down the pitches bit by bit as the walls close in. Sometimes the passageways are rib crushingly narrow. Flatter sections are interrupted every few hundred meters by descents to the next pitch. These long tube like drops are where things have the potential to get really trapped. Tricky. The cavers must belay themselves down, feeding the rope through inch by inch as their boots bounce off the rocky walls.
- [19:27]
Dick Willis
So in a deep shaft or in an awkward position, you're putting what we call a rebelay. So you put a fixing in the wall which might be something natural like a stalactite or a bolt in the rock. Back in the day when I started Doing this, we fixed the bolts in a rock by hammering them in with a lump hammer. Quite a laborious process, took quite a long time.
- [19:51]
Narrator
Meter by meter, they allow themselves to be swallowed by the cave. Through the route, the small, steady stream of water trickles downwards, a tiny underground river leading the way. After around half a mile of meticulous walking, crawling and abseiling, the three reach a natural break. The vast jaw dropping Sal Verna, the largest underground chamber in the world. The light from their torches is engulfed by the darkness. Their feeble beams illuminate tiny fractions of the gigantic chamber at a time, joining the scene together like a jigsaw.
- [20:38]
Dick Willis
You're following the river down through the shafts and through a series of galleries and passages into this enormous chamber, the bottom of which is covered in boulders, and the river flows between the boulders and then sinks at the end.
- [20:54]
Narrator
Giant layers of rocks rise above their heads, curving and culminating in an uneven limestone ceiling. The men take a moment in this capacious cavern, catching their breath and stretching their tight limbs, a welcome respite having been stooped and scrambling for so long. But it's not long before they have to get moving again. Dick turns his gaze to the stream trickling off into another dark drop. That's where they're headed next. And from here things start getting really complicated.
- [21:37]
Dick Willis
And then you turned off that into a horrific section of passage called the Meander Martin. So this is a very long, very windy passage that's narrow and very high, and you have to make your way down it, racing yourself against the walls on either side. And if you slipped into the bottom of it, it would be extremely difficult to get out.
- [22:03]
Narrator
Painfully wedging themselves between two rock walls, the men shimmy down. If one of them falls, it could be disastrous for all three. They remain vigilant, gritting teeth, bracing muscles, and clambering ever deeper into the belly of Mother Earth.
- [22:23]
Dick Willis
You get to the end of that eventually, and the end of that is a small chamber and a small river coming in from the side. That goes down a series of pitches, five, I think, five pitches to the point that Ulsa had got to two years before, where you drop the final pitch and the river disappears through this slot under a boulder.
- [22:48]
Narrator
They're getting close now to the point where the previous expedition met a dead end. And as the three men squeeze and wriggle their way down, excitement rises. They could be about to go deeper underground than anyone has before. But what the men don't know is that thousands of feet above them, dense clouds have gathered over the Pyrenean countryside. The mountains have grown dark and the patter of raindrops has begun. It's the start of a storm, one that will seep downwards with drastic consequences for the trio of explorers.
- [23:37]
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- [24:10]
Dick Willis
You don't wake up dreaming of McDonald's fries, you wake up dreaming of McDonald's hash browns. McDonald's breakfast comes first. Ba da ba ba ba.
- [24:25]
Narrator
The hours pass, and Andy continues to lead his friends towards the bottom of the world's deepest known cave. Dick and Paul follow, trusting Andy's instincts and copying his movements. The total lack of natural light has thrown the men's circadian rhythms out of sync. They have little idea of the time of day or how long they've been caving for. But each of them has studied the map of the PSM in detail. And as the tunnels narrow into dark, jagged tubes, they sense they're almost at their destination. Though the further they descend, the higher the stakes rise. And now it's impossible to ignore the fact that the water around them is rising by the second. It swirls past their ankles, dripping into their boots and through their socks. Each time Andy ties a rope, he has to fasten it with two additional metal bolts to secure the knots. If the rising water loosens the ropes, there will be no way out. Eventually they follow the stream to a sloping passage.
- [25:41]
Dick Willis
So the passage was about 45 degrees of boulders with the river. So we made our way down, we scrambled down this cascade to the top of the next pitch and put two bolts in and Abel down that one and then dropped the final pitch, which is about 30 meters to the chamber at the bottom.
- [26:02]
Narrator
Finally, after what must be at least seven hours of caving, the trio hook onto the last set of bolts and lower themselves through the awaiting pitch. They're almost there, almost at the bottom of the cave. However, when the team unhook their harnesses, their boots thudding onto the rocks below, the joy of their achievement is quickly undermined by the brutality of the conditions.
- [26:34]
Dick Willis
The bottom of the PSM is a godforsaken place, the most God awful place because it's very windy. The river has always got a wind blow coming down with it and the water's 2 degrees and it's not a place you want to be, really. We're all freezing cold, you know, it was cold, muddy. There was nothing pretty in it. It was just rock and water.
- [26:56]
Narrator
They've hit rock bottom in more ways than one. After hours of punishing caving, the unpleasantness of the bottom pitch is a bitter pill to swallow. And yet they stand on the edge of history. They believe they might be able to go even deeper. If the men can push, that is, break through the bottom of this cave, they'll be able to see how far it really goes. Just then, Andy spots something and points it out to the other two. A narrow passage in one of the cave walls. It looks tiny, wide enough for just one person. This could be it. Andy splashes towards the gap and squeezes his body through, leaving Dick and Paul hanging back, waiting with bated breath. Minutes later, he reemerges soaking wet, shivering and shaking his head solemnly. It's a dead end.
- [28:03]
Dick Willis
You can make places like this bigger by chiseling bits off the walls or use explosives. And we ascertain fairly quickly, though without a huge amount of effort, trying to make this slot bigger by various techniques, we weren't going to go through.
- [28:21]
Narrator
Signals. Only one thing, their mission is over. But they'll have to shake off the disappointment quickly now. For reasons they cannot be sure of, the stream is rising faster than before and all of a sudden becoming trapped, even drowning has become a very real possibility. Dick wades back through the water and clips his harness onto the rope. There's no time to lose. They have a long, perilous journey ahead.
- [28:57]
Dick Willis
So I climb the first pitch on the way out. Bottom pitch, get to the top, shout, everything's okay. Andy comes up and joins me, turns around, shouts to Paul that everything's okay.
- [29:10]
Narrator
They try to ascend as efficiently as they can, but as Dick leads the team, it's immediately clear that the roots and the cave's conditions have changed dramatically since they descended. If it was tough getting down here, it'll be a gargantuan effort to get back up. Now everything is not just damp, but soaking wet. The ropes are saturated, making a proper grip near impossible. Dick's legs are almost entirely underwater as he splashes through the chambers.
- [29:44]
Dick Willis
I start going up the 45 degree cascade because I was concentrating what I was doing. I wasn't very conscious of the water, but the Andy who was behind me saw a wall of water coming down, what we call a Flood pulse. So this wall of water came down and over me and then down towards where he and Paul were.
- [30:11]
Narrator
High above them, in the peaks of the Pyrenees, the storm has gathered momentum. The deluge has burst the banks of the rivers and streams, sending floodwater gushing underground. Now every passage, every gap they enter has its own swirling, freezing current, pushing them back as if trying to trap them. All the trio can do is grit their teeth and continue to climb.
- [30:41]
Dick Willis
I made my way to the top of the cascade and I attached myself to the rope and I pressed up to what we call the belay at the top, where the. The rope was attached on the way down. That had been dry. Now it was underwater, so I had to swap from that rope to the rope going up the next sloping section with all my gear underwater.
- [31:05]
Narrator
Through the suffocating darkness, Dick begins to hear sinister crashing sounds, the running water starting to loosen the boulders in the chambers above carried down by the stream. They could block the way out, or worse, crush the cavers as they climb.
- [31:25]
Dick Willis
You can hear the thunder of bulbs coming down, and you don't need a very big one to do your damage.
- [31:36]
Narrator
Time continues to warp as Dick slowly, exhaustingly navigates upwards through the maze. Chilling winds howl to every crack and crevice. It's now impossible to hear Andy or Paul, but Dick trusts their following. Eventually, he finds a flat ledge mere inches above the waterline. Here he can pause for breath and change his ropes while the others catch up.
- [32:05]
Dick Willis
I got up to the ledge and I turned around and I shouted down, rope free. Which is the indication the next person had come up and it was just this maelstrom of spray and a thunderous water and I couldn't hear anything.
- [32:21]
Narrator
Dick waits a few seconds. Maybe they're just lagging behind. Maybe the cacophony of water is muffling their replies. He waits a few more moments, then calls down again. He shines his light through the passage. Nothing. No reply. No sign of Andy or Paul. Dick is alone.
- [32:50]
Dick Willis
And I shouted again and I couldn't hear anything. And I was shouting, rope free. And there was no response. By this stage, I'd started thinking this was something wrong.
- [33:03]
Narrator
Seconds turn to minutes, and still Dick waits on the narrow ledge. When did he lose them? Are they in trouble? One thing is clear. His body is starting to suffer. He's beginning to shiver on the ledge. His oversuit is soaked through, his gloves and boots saturated. There's not an inch of dry skin on him. He hasn't eaten or drunk anything for hours. His energy levels are dropping. It's clear Dick needs to get out of the cave while he's still got the strength. But what about Andy and Paul?
- [33:44]
Dick Willis
When I was young, there was an Italian cartoon which featured a guy who had an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other shoulder. And they used to have a dialogue. I found myself on that ledge in that position. I had the sensible one going, the cave's flooding, you need to get out. And the other one on the other side saying, it's just really wet, you're on your own, you're a wimp, they'll take the piss out of you. So this dialogue went on with me in the middle for anywhere between two minutes and half an hour.
- [34:20]
Narrator
Water fills the gaps and cuts off passages as boulders continue to tumble through the labyrinth. The beam from his head torch starts to flicker and dim. Time is running out. Eventually, Dick's internal debate reaches its conclusion.
- [34:43]
Dick Willis
I have absolutely no idea how long I was there. None. If you got mates, you need to make sure your mates get out. But the main thing was the sensible bit of me eventually won and said, you know, you're getting really cold and it's really wet, you need to get out. So I clipped under the ropes and I carried on. At which point it was, I've got to get out and I've got to raise the alarm and get the others.
- [35:09]
Narrator
The best way to help Andy and Paul could actually be to leave them behind. If Dick can reach the support team on the surface, they'll be in a far better position to launch a rescue attempt. Harness securely clipped onto the rope, Dick slips down from the ledge and splashes through the floodwater once more. His gloved hands claw the jagged rocks and he squeezes his body through the ascending tunnels. At one point he decides to strip off his clamp harness and oversuit, leaving them on a patch of relatively flat ground. This extra equipment could be of some use later on, either to the rescue teams or to Andy and Paul themselves, if they're still alive.
- [36:03]
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- [36:33]
Narrator
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- [36:37]
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- [36:37]
Dick Willis
Big Snoop deal.
- [36:38]
Narrator
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- [36:41]
Dick Willis
Head to T mobile.com and get full four iPhone 16s with Apple Intelligence on us plus four lines for 25 bucks.
- [36:48]
Narrator
That's quite a deal, Snoop.
- [36:49]
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- [36:51]
Narrator
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- [36:55]
Dick Willis
Up out of here, see how you.
- [36:57]
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- [37:03]
Narrator
@ last, Dick nears the cave's exit. Up ahead is one final obstacle. The benign stream that had trickled so gently along the cave floor when they first entered has now expanded beyond recognition.
- [37:19]
Dick Willis
It was a lake, so I had to hop from boulder to boulder.
- [37:26]
Narrator
Teetering on sharp, slick rocks, Dick carefully navigates this enormous swollen lake one step at a time. And then finally, he reaches the other side. A punch of adrenaline sends him racing along the final tunnel towards sunlight. So close, he's so amped up that he doesn't notice how low the ceiling is, how close his helmet is to the solid rock just above his head.
- [37:56]
Dick Willis
And then my reflector on my carbide light caught the roof and floored me backwards. Nearly broke my neck and that hurt.
- [38:08]
Narrator
Thankfully, the helmet takes the brunt of the impact. A quick shake of the head and he's back on his feet within seconds. And then he sees the steel doors of the PSM's entrance.
- [38:24]
Dick Willis
I'm so hyped up, I'm not exhausted in those circumstances you're running on adrenaline, so I don't have any memory of being tired at that point. I got to the steel doors and I opened the steel doors and I shot them. And normally you need two people to shut those gates, but I shot them on my own. That was a measure of how hyped up I was.
- [38:52]
Narrator
At 8.45am, around 20 hours since the mission began, Dick bursts out of the cave. He's been climbing upwards almost non stop for the past 12 hours. Without a backwards glance, Dick sprints across the sodden grass towards the hut where his team is sleeping. The sun is rising and the brightness of the August morning is a shocking contrast to the cave's total darkness. Dick wrenches open the hut's door. Groggy faces look back at him, bemused. Frantically, he explains what's happened. His colleagues leap from their beds.
- [39:34]
Dick Willis
And all my mates were asleep and I woke them up and told them what was going on and they'd all Been out there, been this huge electrical storm and they'd all been out taking photographs of the lightning while we were having this epic down the bottom. Anyway, Dave Brook, who was the expedition leader, is an extraordinary caver. Wonderful bloke. He got everybody together organized. The team sent people down to the bottom to get more gear and they started carrying kit in.
- [40:03]
Narrator
Dick is given a hot drink and told to zip himself into a sleeping bag. He's done all he can. With exhaustion finally hitting him, he lies down and grabs some fitful shut eye. Meanwhile, the rest of the team gets to work. First, they place a bright artificial dye directly into the stream. This turns the water a different color as it descends down through the cave system. If they are still alive, this should alert Andy and Paul that help is coming. Then a group of rescuers head into the cave. Morning melts into afternoon, then evening, and by 6pm the group returns. It's not good news. No sign of Andy or Paul. The team have traveled through the entrance, past the Sal Verna and down several of the pitches with no success. The one silver lining is that the water levels are going down. The next group of rescuers buckle up their harnesses, switch on their torches and head into the depths. Dusk becomes darkness and another full night passes before the pale blue of dawn arrives. And at last, at around 4.45am, one of the cavers re emerges. Andy and Paul have been spotted.
- [41:38]
Dick Willis
What then happened was these rescue teams went down, they got to the small chamber where I'd left my oversuit and as they were going down, they met Andy coming back up and he said, Paul's following me. So they went down and they found Paul standing up to his waist and in water on that ledge where I had this dialogue between the sensible and the non sensible part of me. And he was beginning to suffer from exposure because it's so cold. But worse than that, all his lights had gone out. The rescue team got to Paul and by complete chance they'd taken with them the first ever fiber power sleeping bag to be manufactured in Britain. A sample because Dave Brook worked in the textiles department at the university and they'd given him this sample to bring it. So they brought that down and they put Paul in this sleeping bag on this wet ledge and they ferried hot soup down to him from the chamber at the top.
- [42:40]
Narrator
As Paul is warmed up in the sleeping bag, Andy scrambles through the remaining pitches and out into the open air of the Pyrenees. There he is finally reunited with Dick, swapping stories. It seems that as Dick was ascending Andy and Paul fell further and further behind until cold and exhaustion threatened to overwhelm them. Eventually, they arrived at a ledge where they decided to stop taking their chances with a rising water level.
- [43:19]
Dick Willis
They were on that ledge for something like 18 hours. What had happened with them was that they snuggled up and kept each other warm until they made the decision to come out. Now, that was partly prompted by the rescue team who came in and got to the top of the pitches and they put a colored dye in the water to tell Paul and Andy that they were there and on their way.
- [43:41]
Narrator
While he still had the strength, Andy decided to go on and tried to hasten the help that Paul needed, though it seems Andy feared his other friend was already beyond help.
- [43:54]
Dick Willis
Afterwards, he told me art, he carried a knife in his teeth because he expected to find me hanging on a rope, having been hit by a boulder and killed. So he was going to cut my body off and drop it. Charming.
- [44:10]
Narrator
That all three men survived is testament to their fortitude and skill. But still, there is tragedy elsewhere in the caves.
- [44:20]
Dick Willis
That day, in another cave nearby, the same storm killed two French cavers and they died on the ropes. They were hit by boulders.
- [44:36]
Narrator
In the coming days, with renewed caution, the expedition does continue. The team sends further groups down into the psm, still hoping to achieve what they set out to do.
- [44:48]
Dick Willis
It wasn't the end of the expedition because, I mean, we all got out safely and that's the main thing. There are other, what we call leads in that cave, so they go off sideways. And the rest of the expedition was taken up pushing those to see if they provided a route to the bottom that went below the one we got to.
- [45:08]
Narrator
Unfortunately, it's not to be. And the British cavers exit the PSM without the glory they'd dreamt of. But for Dick, the remaining warm summer days in the French Pyrenees are not a mark of their failure. Instead, they give him a chance to reflect on the ordeal that he and his friends have just been through.
- [45:29]
Advertiser
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- [45:34]
Dick Willis
Believer in luck. I mean, I was competent in the use of my equipment, so I was able to do a transfer with my hands out of sight underwater, which I suspect some people with less experience may be not able to do. I didn't panic for some reason, partly because I didn't want people to take the piss out of me after, you know, self esteem is an important thing. And I think we were lucky. Unlucky in one way and lucky in another, to be honest. Now, I mean, I know people who've been through the ring, as it were, and come out and think, my God, I've got to make the most of everything. But I, I don't think I did that. You know, I came out and, and then I was thinking about, well, what's on next?
- [46:23]
Narrator
Two years later, in 1979, Dick joins a caving trip to Spain, while the following decade takes him to Southeast China, Java and Central Asia. Despite the risks, nothing can shake his love for it.
- [46:38]
Dick Willis
What it does do is reinforce the importance of your friends and the ability to be able to rely on them to do things. We don't exist in splendid isolation. We need social contact, we need people we trust, we need people we can call on if we need them. And that was very evident in that rescue. So that's the only thing. If you're going to go on expeditions, go with people you like and trust. You develop deep bonds with people that you risk your life with. You know that if you have a problem, they'll get you out. And they know that if they have a problem, you'll do your best to get them out. So the bonds are very deep.
- [47:26]
Narrator
Next time on Real Survival Stories, we meet Sheena Levitt. In September 1974, Sheena is working on board a vessel in the English Channel, the busiest shipping lane in the world. They're on a simple job, transporting cargo from London to Guernsey. But they won't make it that far. When pounding waves flood the craft, her three person crew will be forced into a decision that every sailor dreads. Abandoning ship, Sheena will find herself alone without a life jacket, unsure if she'll ever see her crewmates or land again. That's next time on Real Survival Stories. You can listen right now without waiting a week by subscribing to Noiser Plus.
- [48:17]
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- [48:31]
Narrator
Will that be cash or credit?
- [48:34]
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- [48:47]
Narrator
My dad works in B2B marketing.
- [48:49]
Dick Willis
He came by my school for career.
- [48:51]
Narrator
Day and said he was a big roas man.
- [48:54]
Dick Willis
Then he told everyone how much he.
- [48:55]
Narrator
Loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friends still laugh at me to this day.
- [49:01]
Advertiser
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