A TEAM OF cave rescue volunteers worked into the early hours of this morning to free a man who had gotten stuck in a cave in Co Fermanagh yesterday evening. 

Five members of the Irish Cave Rescue Organisation (ICRO) initially attended the scene at around 9:15pm. After initial efforts, however, a callout was issued for volunteers across Ireland at 10:45, a spokesman for the organisation said. 

The man, aged in his twenties, became too tired to continue while he was on the return leg of a planned caving trip in a system on the Marlbank on the north side of Cuilcagh Mountain.

Members of the rescue team. Members of the rescue team.

More than 20 ICRO volunteers from north and south of the border attended the scene to assist the operation, including team members from Larne, Belfast, Dublin, and Co Clare.

The team members reached the man quickly and assessed his condition, a spokesperson said.

A “hot point” was established underground where he was warmed and fed. Meanwhile, rock breaking and rescue rigging teams engineered a bypass to a constricted section of passage near the entrance. This allowed the man to be hauled up via the new route to the surface.

The man was brought safely to the surface at around 3:15am and the team was stood down shortly afterwards at 4:00am. The man was uninjured.

Commenting on the rescue operation, ICRO chair Stephen McCullagh said: “It was a very successful rescue. We were alerted around 8.30pm last night and a number of local wardens – who’re highly experienced rescue people – made their way up to the cave.”

The ICRO is a specialist all-Ireland volunteer rescue team for the underground environment. It has bases in Co Clare and Co Fermanagh.

The organisation attends incidents in caves, potholes and abandoned mines at the request of gardaí and the PSNI, and has around 60 members nationally.

“It became clear that we had to extend the call out to the wider ICRO group,” McCullagh said. “With more volunteers, we were able to engineer an easier route out of the cave, and the caver was then hauled vertically to the surface with ropes. The rescue was completed just after 4am.”