“She’s talking little or no, however mentioned she would by no means enter a cave once more.” That’s what an Alpine rescue medic mentioned of Ottavia Piana, a speleologist—that is a scientist who research caves—who was on Wednesday rescued from the Italian cave the place she had sustained critical accidents 4 days prior. The Guardian experiences Piana was mapping an uncharted space of the Bueno Fonteno cave with eight others on Saturday when a 15-foot fall left her with a fractured face, ribs, and knees. In a continuous 75-hour operation, greater than 150 consultants carried out the “delicate course of” of eradicating the 32-year-old from the cave on a stretcher. It was a 2.5-mile journey that at instances required using explosives to clear a pathway.
Indeed, “the morphology of the cave … made it tough, with some areas susceptible to a landslide, which can also be why the accident occurred, as a rock gave manner beneath her ft,” mentioned Mauro Guiducci, the National Alpine and Speleological Rescue Corps’ vp. The BBC experiences six medical doctors and eight nurses cared for Piana repeatedly, with dozens of rescuers taking turns carrying her stretcher. It was not the primary time Piana had been rescued from that very cave, which is positioned in northern Italy’s Bergamo area: She broke her leg there 17 months in the past and was caught for 2 days. (More caves tales.)
