Sick American researcher rescued from cave in Turkey after nine days Forget sex and drugs! Now the next type of tourist is attacking Amsterdam

After nine days, an American cave explorer who was seriously ill during an expedition in Turkey was rescued from a depth of more than 1,000 meters. Mark Dickey was removed from the cave shortly after midnight (local time) on Tuesday and taken to a tent for medical attention, the Turkish Association of Speleologists tweeted. “This means that the cave rescue portion of the operation has been completed successfully. We congratulate everyone who contributed!” According to media reports, Dickey is doing well under the circumstances.

The American was part of an international research team that explored the Morca Cave in the south of the country. On September 2, the 40-year-old suffered a stomach hemorrhage at a depth of 1,250 meters. His colleagues managed to take him to a camp at a depth of 1,000 meters. The cave is the third deepest in Türkiye.

Doctors had already entered the cold, damp and dark cave last week to see the American and, among other things, give him blood transfusions. The rescue was very complex: narrow cave passages had to be blown open because Dickey had to be brought out with a special device that did not fit through the narrow cave passages. More than 150 international helpers were involved in the rescue operation, including from Hungary and Italy. Photos show how medics treated Dickey. The association initially expected the rescue to take about two weeks.

According to the association, the helpers brought the man piece by piece to the entrance of the cave on a stretcher with a seat belt system. They had to take repeated breaks in makeshift camps so Dickey could rest. The helpers worked intensively to get Dickey out of the cave as quickly as possible: on Monday afternoon Dickey was 180 meters from the entrance, four hours later 100 meters from the entrance. The association tweeted: “Crews continue to work to get him released tonight.”

In Germany, a rescue operation in the Riesending Shaft Cave, Germany’s longest and deepest cave, caused a stir in 2014. At that time, a cave explorer was hit in the head by a falling rock and was brought to light from a depth of 1,000 meters during a rescue operation that lasted eleven days. (sda/dpa)