Volunteers worked for nearly six hours to rescue a man stuck in a cave in Fermanagh overnight on Saturday into Sunday.
The man, in his twenties, signalled he was too tired to continue while on the return leg of a the caving trip in a system on the Marlbank on the north side of Cuilcagh Mountain, near Enniskillen.
Five local volunteers from the Irish Cave Rescue Organisation (ICRO), the all-Ireland volunteer organisation, arrived to the scene just after 9pm on Saturday. Volunteers across Ireland were put on alert at 10.45pm.
The caver was brought safely to the surface at 3.15am, uninjured. The team was stood down 45 minutes later.
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.
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.”
“It became clear that we had to extend the call out to the wider ICRO group. 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.”
