Emergency services in Spain's northeastern region of Catalonia successfully rescued an injured caver from deep underground today after deploying a team of 40 experts.
The fire department of the region of Catalonia said rescuers had used special tools to chip away at sections of the cave to widen it in order to allow a stretcher to fit.
A phone call yesterday had alerted firefighters to the emergency inside the Cuberes cave in the municipality of Conca de Dalt. A 45-year-old caver had fallen six meters (20 feet) in an underground space some three kilometers (two miles) from the cave entrance.
A team including 19 rescue specialists, a doctor and nurse, seven underground climbers from the Catalan Speleology Federation and 12 police were flown to the cave.
Another emergency medical group arrived Sunday to wait for the rescuers to surface with the injured caver and the three other cave climbers who had been with him.
Once on the surface, the caver who had suffered back injuries was evacuated by helicopter to a hospital in nearby city of Lleida, the fire department said in a statement.
In a separate incident, emergency services in the southwestern province of Cadiz sent a team of 28 to rescue a 24-year-old caver who had suffered a knee injury some 90 meters (295 ft.) below ground.
