60% of Mendip Cave Rescue Callouts to Extricate People Trapped in Armchairs

Mendip Cave Rescue (MCR) have recently released their 2017 incident report summary. Some of the findings of the report were easily predicted, for instance only 17% of the 12 MCR-attended incidents in 2017 involved underground rescue, and of those rescues a large proportion were from Rhino Rift to recover local cavers who frequently become hysterical at the sight of rope.

Rhino Rift has a fearsome reputation in the Mendip caving community for containing three SRT pitches, and as such is considered to be one of the few Grade 6 caves.

The other strong trend to emerge in the report is the significant number of MCR incidents that involve extracting unfortunate cavers who are stuck-fast in comfortable armchairs either in their homes or in one of the local drinking huts.

In a statement that accompanied the release of the incident report, MCR said: "Like other search-and-rescue organisations, Mendip Cave Rescue has had to adapt to the changing nature of incidents in our region, and so each MCR Land Rover now carries a wide selection of lubricants and we are in discussion with Durex about a possible sponsorship deal."

Though few of the rescue call outs involved caving, some Dales cavers were surprised to learn that there were such a large number of underground incidents on Mendip, with one Clapham-based potholer tweeting, "Shocked to hear 2 Mendip rescues underground in 2017 - thought there were no caves on Mendip. Next you'll be telling me they've got a cave that's 9 km long LOL".