Beating the odds!

God was watching this explorer!

Diver rescued from Panhandle cave after six hours

MARIANNA, Fla. (AP) - Divers missing in caves seldom get out
alive, but Mark Orr beat the odds when he was rescued six hours
after getting lost.
Scott Hunsucker, a certified cave diver from Pensacola, found
Orr, 26, of Escatawpa, Miss., Saturday night. Not only was Orr
alive, he had just awakened from a nap when Hunsucker swam into the
cavern where he had taken refuge.
"He came up about a foot away from me," Orr said Monday. "I
said, 'Hey, you lookin' for a dead man?' "
That's exactly what a startled Hunsucker thought he would find.
"You go in there looking for a corpse and the corpse ends up
talking to you," Hunsucker said.
Orr is believed to be only the fourth person recovered alive out
of nearly 500 divers reported missing in caves since 1960 in
Florida, Mexico and the Caribbean, according to the Texas-based San
Marcos Area Recovery Team.
Orr, Scottie Dickerson and William Donald, all of Escatawpa, and
Paul Covington of Theodore, Ala., came to the Florida Panhandle
looking for a cave to dive. All are certified to dive in open
water, not in caves.
Of the divers who have died in caves, more than 95 percent were
not certified for cave diving, said Hunsucker, the region's rescue
cave diver.
"It's not the caves that are bad or that cause these things to
happen," Hunsucker said. "It's a lack of training."
Orr said his group was looking for a cave called The Alamo, but
ended up at Marianna's Bat Cave.
It is only partly submerged, with the space above water level
serving as a home to bats. That's what saved Orr after he became
disoriented when the divers kicked up silt that obscured their
vision.
He was separated from the other divers and unable to find the
guide rope they use to find their way out, but he remembered the
cavern with an air pocket they had explored earlier.
Orr reached it with only a few breaths left in his air tank and
crawled onto a ledge to get out of the chilly water.
He prayed and then fell asleep, awakening to a glow in the water
he knew was a rescuer.

(Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press

good thing it was the wrong cave:eek:

That is not the way I want to go.