NEED TO KNOW
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A 37-year-old Tampa man and his two sons were trapped for days in a West Virginia cave
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Speaking to PEOPLE in 1990, the trio explained how a caving trip turned into a harrowing ordeal
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“We were just so tired, so exhausted,” Gary Lutes said. “We felt like we’d fought as long as we could and we were ready to rest”
A 37-year-old Tampa man and his two sons experienced a harrowing ordeal when they found themselves trapped for days in a West Virginia cave, surrounded by darkness and tormented by thirst and hunger.
Gary Lutes, a single father whose wife had died of breast cancer four years prior, had set out on a hike with his boys (Gary Jr., known as “Buddy,” 13, and Tim, 9) in 1990. A 20-year caving veteran, he was experienced at traversing difficult terrain and had previously explored New Trout Cave. But when the three descended the cabe and entered the tangle of tunnels within known as the Maze, they had no idea what would await.
Speaking to PEOPLE for a 1990 story, Lutes recalled how the three came to an eight-foot drop-off through sharp rocks. when he thought, ”Man, I do not want to hassle with this pack snagging on every little rock.”
That’s when he made the decision to leave behind his bag — and in it, the trio’s emergency supply of water, food, fuel, a cigarette lighter and a candle. Ten minutes later — now 200 feet deeper into the cave — Tim’s light began to dim and then flickered out. Minutes later, Buddy’s lamp began to flicker.
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That’s when Lutes said his ”adrenaline started pumping pretty hard.”
With little light, Lutes became disoriented and ultimately lost — and the boys could tell.
”Dad looked nervous,” Buddy recalled to. ”I could tell we were lost. He was moving too fast, jerking his head back and forth.”
Lutes tried to reassure the boys — and himself — that they’d be okay, but he was losing confidence. Then his lamp — their last remaining source of light — went out and the three were plunged into utter darkness.
“Nobody really said much of anything other than the kids asking, ‘Are we gonna get out of here? Are we gonna get out of here?’ ” Lutes recounted to PEOPLE. “I said, ‘Yeah, we’re gonna get out. I just gotta think.’ “
Over the next two hours, Lutes took drastic measures, using his own urine to wet carbide and light one of the lamps that had dimmed. But that light only lasted for so long before they were again in the dark.
“We kept looking at our watches every 10 minutes,” Buddy said, noting that they huddled together to conserve body heat. But soon the three were shivering in the damp, 54 degree air — and they were hungry and thirsty.
“By the first night our mouths were feeling dry, like cotton,” Lutes recalled. “I would have given anything for that canteen of water.”
Within 24 hours, they couldn’t stand without becoming dizzy, at that point dehydrated and without any food to provide energy.
Lutes said that at one point, three three laid down to succumb to what they felt was inevitable. “Yes, we lay down to die, so to speak,” he said. “We were just so tired, so exhausted. We felt like we’d fought as long as we could and we were ready to rest.”
By the third day, he felt death was inevitable, and began feeling a pain in his chest and seeing flashes of light.
“I told the boys, ‘There may come a time when one of us is going to go first. If by some chance that happens to be me, I want you to take my shirt,’ ” he said. “That got them all churned up. I remember the three of us just hugging each other for so long and crying, but I’d dehydrated to where there were no tears. There was nothing.”
While he briefly felt better, he felt near the brink two days later. All three began hallucinating, with Lutes imaging he saw a Coke vending machine, and Buddy hallucinating that he was reclining in their living room La-Z-Boy, but unable to work the remote control.
The boys’ breathing had changed, and they began asking their father what it would be like to die.
Five days into their journey, as the three lay drifting in and out of sleep, Lutes thought he heard someone calling Tim’s name.
“I thought it was my mind playing tricks on me,” he said. “I just lay there and didn’t say a thing. It was Tim who sat up and started yelling, and I realized if he was hearing the same thing I was, it must be real. Then we all three sat up and started yelling.”
Fifteen minutes later, two rescuers approached, with Lutes remembering that their lights “seemed like a high beam from a car shining in our eyes. I didn’t turn my head away. I looked at it. I loved seeing that light.”
What the trio hadn’t known was that a rescue team had been assembled two days prior, when the boys didn’t arrive to a planned meetup with their grandparents.
Rescued in the dead of night, all three were suffering from dehydration, starvation and nerve damage to their feet due to loss of circulation. Buddy had a partially collapsed lung, and Tim had to be treated for an infected blister. Both Lutes and Buddy were hospitalized for two nights, Tim for three.
Speaking to PEOPLE in the aftermath, Lutes said he wasn’t ready to swear off caving, but did add: “I think from here on out, I’m going to be a much calmer person, much more patient. I’m just going to try to make the best of each day.”
Read the original article on People
