Bad Air in Long Rake Mine, Bradwell Moor
- Thread starter JB
- Start date
nickwilliams
Well-known member
SamT said:
Agreed, but it's important not to rule anything out yet. If these guys had failed to come out under their own steam, it's entirely possible that they and anyone trying to rescue them would have been fatalities.
Nick.
LarryFatcat
Active member
Thanks, saved me digging it out again.Rob said:
T
Tony
Guest
Hi all
I was one of the cavers that survived the Long Rake trip on the recent bank holiday weekend. All was well until we reached pitch 5 where we began to experience headaches, nausea and tiredness around the area of the dig. We realised that we had been affected by bad air after exploring the area for some time. We tried to ascend as quickly as possible but were increasingly overcome by extreme tiredness and nausea. This got worse on ascent when we began 'gulping air' every couple of metres or so up the rope(s). We returned to the surface about 9 hours (roughly 2015 hrs) after descending; late but under the circumstances happy to have made it. On the way home nausea turned to vomiting and we were taken to hospital around midnight where we were kept on 100% O2 until 0600-0700 hrs. I can confirm that the hospital carried out blood gas checks on us and reported 10% Carbon Monoxide in our blood some four hours or so after we exited the system.
These are the facts. I hope they are useful to those that wish to learn from our experience. Before anyone asks, we are trained, experienced and enthusiastic cavers.
I also hope that DCA and others discover what is going on in Long Rake but for the meantime I agree that it is very unwise for individuals to explore the site.
Best wishes and be safe
Tony
I was one of the cavers that survived the Long Rake trip on the recent bank holiday weekend. All was well until we reached pitch 5 where we began to experience headaches, nausea and tiredness around the area of the dig. We realised that we had been affected by bad air after exploring the area for some time. We tried to ascend as quickly as possible but were increasingly overcome by extreme tiredness and nausea. This got worse on ascent when we began 'gulping air' every couple of metres or so up the rope(s). We returned to the surface about 9 hours (roughly 2015 hrs) after descending; late but under the circumstances happy to have made it. On the way home nausea turned to vomiting and we were taken to hospital around midnight where we were kept on 100% O2 until 0600-0700 hrs. I can confirm that the hospital carried out blood gas checks on us and reported 10% Carbon Monoxide in our blood some four hours or so after we exited the system.
These are the facts. I hope they are useful to those that wish to learn from our experience. Before anyone asks, we are trained, experienced and enthusiastic cavers.
I also hope that DCA and others discover what is going on in Long Rake but for the meantime I agree that it is very unwise for individuals to explore the site.
Best wishes and be safe
Tony
LarryFatcat
Active member
Mark said:
If I wanted to take you up on the offer, where would we pick up and drop it off on Sunday?
PM me.
Cave_Troll
Active member
you might want to liase with the DCA. If the farmer is not allowing access at the moment, if you just turn up with a gas detector, you might screw things up for the people from DCA who may be going down to investigate on monday for example.
LarryFatcat
Active member
Tony said:
I have sent you a PM (Personal Message) to try and locate your dig which we assume is the source of the bad air.
underground
Active member
LarryFatcat said:
Larry, you want to get in touch with the DCA before you start looking for bad air; FFS don't be the next casualty...
LarryFatcat
Active member
I'm just trying to gather info at the moment.underground said:
graham
New member
Serious question. How is the person who goes to find out what the gas levels are going to protect themselves against being the next casualty? if it was CO2 then a soda lime scrubber could be used, but for CO surely one will need a full air kit, and caving in that lot down several pitches is no joke in anyone's language.
graham
New member
Rob said:
It is a serious question, Rob. Some of our guys used air kit in Thailand a few years back in areas of high CO2 and were extremely articulate on the problems of caving in dry caves (i.e. not sumps) whilst kitted up like that. CO exposure at relatively low levels (50 ppm) can have cumulative effects and cause long-term health problems. Higher levels can be deadly quite quickly. As far as I can tell, CO will pond up like CO2, so abseiling into it would mean that you are already in trouble when your alarm sounds.
This stuff kills 50 people every year in the UK (exclusive of suicides) it needs to be taken seriously.
nickwilliams
Well-known member
It is a serious question and it goes to the heart of why the Longrake incident is such a cause for concern. The cardinal rule of confined space rescue is that you should _never_ attempt to enter a space which has a proven atmosphere problem (i.e. where someone else has already come to grief) until you are either certain that the atmosphere has been made safe, or you are equipped to provide your own good air (and not be poisoned by whatever caused the problem in the first place).
The classic confined space incident, which happens time and time again, is where you get two fatalities, the second one being the guy who tried to rescue the first one without taking proper steps to make the situation safe.
As Graham says, using a gas detector cannot provide protection - it provides a warning, and it's easy to conceive of circumstances where that warning will be too late.
So, to answer Graham's point directly, I don't think there is a practical, safe way to measure the gas levels in the mine. I also don't think that there is any safe way that these guys could have been rescued had they not got themselves out and this is why it's so important to understand precisely what happened, since until we do, the site has got to be considered as potentially lethal.
Nick.
The classic confined space incident, which happens time and time again, is where you get two fatalities, the second one being the guy who tried to rescue the first one without taking proper steps to make the situation safe.
As Graham says, using a gas detector cannot provide protection - it provides a warning, and it's easy to conceive of circumstances where that warning will be too late.
So, to answer Graham's point directly, I don't think there is a practical, safe way to measure the gas levels in the mine. I also don't think that there is any safe way that these guys could have been rescued had they not got themselves out and this is why it's so important to understand precisely what happened, since until we do, the site has got to be considered as potentially lethal.
Nick.
Hughie
Active member
To back up Nick and Graham's comments.
Some years ago a friend of mine experienced this whilst working on seweage system on the south coast. His colleague had descended a short access shaft to the tunnel and promptly passed out. Richard immediately went down to his colleagues assistance as he was lying face down in the water blowing bubbles. Richard reckons he passed out before he got to the bottom of the ladder.
Both were wearing gas detectors - neither signified a problem until they'd both zonked out.
The tunnel had been purged prior to their entry.
Gas detectors went of at the sewerage plant signifying the release of a gas "bubble".
Both survived - just.
This was a few years ago now - I imagine HSE have significantly tightened up operating practise since then.
Gas detectors aren't the safety net you may be presuming. The source needs to be tracked down.
Some years ago a friend of mine experienced this whilst working on seweage system on the south coast. His colleague had descended a short access shaft to the tunnel and promptly passed out. Richard immediately went down to his colleagues assistance as he was lying face down in the water blowing bubbles. Richard reckons he passed out before he got to the bottom of the ladder.
Both were wearing gas detectors - neither signified a problem until they'd both zonked out.
The tunnel had been purged prior to their entry.
Gas detectors went of at the sewerage plant signifying the release of a gas "bubble".
Both survived - just.
This was a few years ago now - I imagine HSE have significantly tightened up operating practise since then.
Gas detectors aren't the safety net you may be presuming. The source needs to be tracked down.