"Which one of us is going to be eaten", I asked the two men huddled against me. We three looked like a trio of question marks, lying on our sides in the cave sand and spooning each other. We were lost and had been in the cave for 30 hours. We were almost out of water and the milky way candy bar, although rationed beyond recognition, had been consumed. We were exhausted, hungry, thirsty, and cold. The spooning and huddling was necessary to keep warm. In a cave, hypothermia comes at you on cat paws. It was one of our foremost concerns.
Before either caver could answer the question, I said "you shouldn't eat me, I am the smallest and wouldn't provide as much sustenance". We all laughed then Keith said, "we aren't going to eat anybody". I became more somber. "Okay", I said, "we won't have to eat anyone but how long can we actually last without water?" I knew that a person can survive without food for weeks, living on stored fat, but the body can't survive long without water.
Matt and me had entered Omega Cave on Saturday at 10:00 a.m., with Keith as our leader. Keith had been in the cave many times, had surveyed part of it with the Cavern Science Organization but he hadn't been there for years. Omega Cave is more than fifty miles long and it's easy to get turned around. Keith had usually entered from the opening known as "paleo" but this time we entered from the natural entrance. The different approach disoriented Keith and we realized after several hours that we were lost. We had been caving for ten hours, crawling on razor sharp, protruding pieces of rock which looked like bones. Our knees and hands were sore. I was hypoglycemic, exhausted, uncoordinated and had difficulty thinking. I just wanted to lie on the cave floor and go to sleep but Keith and Matt made me keep crawling.
An hour later we decided to make camp and we emptied the contents of our cave packs on a rock ledge. We had twelve lights, a cyalume, eight spare batteries, twelve ounces of water, two space blankets, two first aid kits, 40 feet of one inch webbing, and one Milky Way. I also had an ancient army poncho which disintegrated, breaking apart into hundreds of pieces. We laid upon the fractioned poncho, spreading the space blankets over us and turned off the lights. We talked in the darkness, pondering how long a rescue would take. Keith had asthma but had forgotten his inhaler. He feared an attack. He said with a mix of sarcasm and sadness, "If I die in an asthma attack, will you eat me"? "You bet ya", I said. We wouldn't want his death to be worthless. We didn't need his whole body, just a foot or hand or other similar-sized body part.
After cycles of sleeping, talking and spooning, we made our way to another part of the cave. We were preparing camp again when Keith realized that he was familiar with the passage. We were near another entrance and if luck were on our side, we could climb our way to sunshine. Three hours later we emerged, having been interred for three days. Layers of dirt were on our faces, our hair was matted, our noses were filled with a mud like substance. We stumbled the five miles to our vehicles, giddily waving at cars and smiling along the way. As we peeled off layers of dirty clothing, Matt kissed Keith and I. Keith apologize for getting lost. We had a group hug, took our pictures and went home.
