He didn’t explore underwater passage
Staff and Wire ReportsRENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
8/19/2005 12:51 am
PROVO, Utah — A Reno man is alive and on his way home after he decided not to join his four friends in exploring a narrow, underwater passageway in Utah where they died Thursday.
Joseph Ferguson, 26, was with four friends who went into the cave on a hillside, said Provo police Sgt. Mark Troxel. Ferguson told authorities he intended to go with the others into the cave, but changed his mind. Authorities found the four people — two women and two men — dead early Thursday in the passageway that led to a chamber in a spring-fed cave, officials said.
Catherine Ferguson of Reno said she had talked to her son Thursday and “he’s pretty shook up — extremely upset.”
“He told me there had been an accident and he was OK,” she said.
She declined to talk further and said he was on his way home.
“We’re just trying to maintain here until he gets home,” she said.
A preliminary report from the state medical examiner’s office lists the cause of death for the four as drowning, said Lynnae Sanford, Provo police records supervisor. The dead were identified as Scott K. McDonald, 28, of Provo; J. Blake Donner, 24, of Springville; Jennifer Lynn Galbraith, 21, of Pleasant Grove; and Ariel R. Singer, 18, of Orem, police said.
“We believe they’d already been into the cavern and were on their way out when something went wrong,” said Lt. Dave Bennett of the Utah County sheriff’s office search and rescue team.
All the bodies were found in the underwater passageway, facing toward the entrance to the cave as if they were swimming out, he said.
The cavern is a chamber in a cave on Y Mountain on public land owned by the city of Provo. After a meeting Thursday afternoon, the city ordered the cave closed immediately with a concrete barricade, said Provo Mayor Lewis Billings.
The chamber is reachable by a water-filled passageway about 15 feet long with a guide rope tied to a rock at the opening and to a piece of wood inside the chamber.
Police said the men were wearing shorts and sandals, and the women were dressed in shorts, shirts and tennis shoes. Pieces of a flashlight were found in the water, but it wasn’t clear if the flashlight belonged to anyone in the group, police said.
There also were unlit candles in the chamber, police said.
Ferguson told police he waited about 45 minutes for the four to return and then began calling friends who were familiar with the cave, Troxel said. As time passed, Ferguson became increasingly alarmed and called 911 about 6:30 a.m., Troxel said.
During the rescue attempt, emergency crews pumped oxygen into the cave and used sump pumps to drain about 6 inches of water from the submerged passageway. A rescue team from the city of Orem that specializes in working in confined spaces such as caves was brought in to help, Mayne said.
However, crews were unfamiliar with the cave and its layout, she said.
Gretchen Baker, a cave safety specialist at Lehman Caves in eastern Nevada, said sometimes the air trapped in small caverns can go bad once enough people have visited. As cavers breathe, they take the oxygen out of the air, leaving only carbon dioxide, which leads to disorientation and confusion, she said.
Lehman Caves in Great Basin National Park has some caves with water in them but visitors need a permit and are questioned by rangers to make sure they have enough cave experience.
“When you look at people who die in caves, the most common reason is water,” she said.
Baker also said that as water levels change, caverns can fill up. Caves are closed when water rises too high, something that typically happens in the spring, she said.
Word of the location of the Provo cave seems to have spread by word of mouth, said Provo resident Brian Lamprey, 29, who said he went into the cavern about three weeks ago.
“You hear about it, and it’s sort of fascinating — almost like a movie-type thing, an underwater expedition, kind of fascinating,” he said outside the cave.
The entrance to the passageway is a water-filled hole, 90 feet to 100 feet inside the cave, Bennett said.
Lamprey said that during his visit he dropped into the hole and worked his way through the underwater passage for about 15 feet before popping up in the next chamber. He said someone had placed a guide rope in the passage.
There is 2 or 3 feet of breathable air above the water in that next chamber, which could hold about eight people, he said.
Billings said the cave is believed to be manmade, possibly an abandoned mine. The property on the hillside was given to the city as part of a development proposal to ensure open space, he said.
A city parks employee investigated the site about a year ago while tracing some water coming down the mountainside. The opening at that time was about 9 inches to 12 inches, Billings said. On Thursday, it was at least three feet across and somewhat obscured by scrub oak, brush and a couple of boulders.
“Gosh, if somebody had known about this we would have clearly quickly acted to close it, and this senseless tragedy could have been avoided,” Billings said.
Provo is 45 miles south of Salt Lake City.