August 15, 2024 • 17 mins
When three friends went on caving trip to Cave City, Kentucky in May 1993, they would go home one friend short. And what happens reminds everyone of a tragic situation from the past. But thanks to the legal system, new laws holding business' accountable gave William Coughlin's family some semblance of justice.
Floyd Collins Episode:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Today's occurrence happens in a cave in Kentucky. When three friends went on
what was supposed to be a one-day adventure, they were excited to be exploring
an attraction that was described as treacherous for beginners.
But by the end of the trip, one of the friends would be trapped and completely
stuck between several rocks.
(00:21):
I'm Tatiana Bunch, and this is the story of William Coughlin.
Music.
On Friday, May 28th, William, who went by Bill, and his two friends,
Jim Giacalla and Kevin Feeley, left for a weekend trip.
(00:45):
It was Memorial Day weekend, and they traveled from Oak Forest,
Illinois, to Cave City, Kentucky.
They were all in their 20s, looking for an adventure, and while they were in
Cave City, they had a great time exploring and enjoying the long holiday weekend.
Today, there are amusement parks, museums, and lots of tourist attractions.
(01:08):
While they were exploring the attractions, they discovered a brochure for Buzzard's
Roost Cave, offering two kinds of tours.
There's the safe scenic historic tour and the riskier wild cave tour.
Both open to the public and both guided.
The historic tour took you to areas in the cave that were easy to navigate and walk through.
(01:32):
The second tour was the wild cave tour and it was made for the more daring visitors.
A guide would take you to explore the untouched areas of the cave.
And you had to twist, crawl, and squeeze through lower passages.
The trio planned to check it out during their weekend trip.
Friday and Saturday were filled with exploring Cave City and enjoying the public and private caves.
(01:57):
The public caves were fun, but the private ones were prettier,
so Saturday night they went to bed excited for their plans the next day.
On Sunday, May 30, 1993, Bill, Jim, and Kevin decided to try out Buzzard's Roost Cave.
They wanted to try the historic tour first. And like with most things that have
(02:19):
risks, to do that tour, they had to sign a liability release form.
They all signed their names on the same liability form, saying if anything happened
during their time at the cave, they would not take legal action against the
owners or any party related to the cave.
But before they started on the historic tour, Kevin changed his mind and backed out.
(02:43):
So Bill and Jim continued the tour without him. Cave manager Dave Harden led the tour.
Bill and Jim had a good time doing the historic tour and felt like they could
do the more challenging tour too.
So they decided to try the Wild Cave tour later that afternoon.
For the Wild Cave tour, four other people joined Bill and Jim,
(03:05):
and they all paid David to guide that one too.
Everyone again signed a liability form to do the wild cave tour starting at 4 30 p.m.
David handed out two flashlights for the group to share and briefed everyone.
He told them that he would lead the tour and that every person after him should
go through the cave the exact same way as the person in front of them did.
(03:28):
So if the person in front of you crawled a specific way, then you should follow
them crawling the same way.
Kind of like the game Follow the Leader.
Now, the wild tour had a different entrance than the historic tour.
For this one, they had to start by going through a narrow crawlway.
After crawling through tight passages for a while, they went up a narrow, tight slot.
(03:51):
And they met the first challenge, a ladder. The first ladder was a 30-foot cable
ladder with wooden rungs.
It hung over a 25-foot deep pit.
After the group went down the ladder, they crawled a bit more before reaching a second ladder.
The second ladder was shorter but harder to navigate because it hung over protruding rocks.
(04:13):
It was around 15 to 20 feet, and it hung over a 42-foot deep pit.
But because of how rocks pushed into it, it was hard for anyone to have a proper grip while climbing.
But the group pressed on, climbing down the second ladder.
By the way, both ladders were homemade and permanently installed in the cave.
(04:34):
After more crawling, they reached an area called the Big Room.
David declared the official tour over and gave them free reign to explore nearby passages.
Passages they explored for a couple of hours before David
got everyone together around seven o'clock and led
the way back once they made it back to the
second ladder David said they were behind schedule and
(04:56):
that he needed to check in on the surface so he left to make a phone call and
this is where reports differ some reports say David told the group that if they
weren't out in 45 minutes he would come back to get them and other reports say
that David left to make a phone
call and after he didn't come back 30 to 45 minutes later the group tried to leave on their own.
(05:20):
So either way 45 minutes goes by and the tour guide is nowhere to be found.
The group starts climbing the second ladder and two of them manage to make it
up but then 27 year old Bill tried to climb it.
He couldn't get past the rock sticking out halfway up so he climbed back down
(05:40):
and let two more people in the caving group climb up instead.
Then Bill tried again. And again, he couldn't get past the rock halfway up.
At this point, Jim asked two people that had already climbed up to keep going
so they could leave and find David.
Jim and Bill waited a while, but with no sign of David, Bill tried to climb the ladder again.
(06:03):
But this time, he slipped and fell. Well, Bill's hand lost its grip at the rock
and hit his back on a ledge on the way down.
He fell 30 feet before landing on his head at the bottom.
He did not have a helmet on. No one in the group did since the tour didn't provide one for them.
So when Bill landed headfirst on the rocks, he started bleeding immediately
(06:26):
and heavily from a two-inch cut on his scalp. out.
Jim told the other two in the group, who were still waiting at the top, to leave and get help.
They left and found David, who came back.
But David returned, without a medical kit, and he didn't call for help.
It was decided that Bill could get out of the cave on his own,
(06:47):
so the remaining cavers pushed and pulled him up the pit.
I can only speculate how that was decided, considering Bill was slipping in
and out of consciousness after hitting his head.
But after that, they made their way to the first ladder, the 25-foot one.
They wrapped rope around him again and helped him up.
(07:07):
Now after that was an area that they were supposed to crawl through.
When Bill tried to go down the v-floored slot headfirst, he got stuck.
He had one hand between his stomach and the rock, and the other hand was pinned behind his back.
At this point, there was one caver in front of him and three on the other side, close to the entrance.
The three on the entrance side left to get the owner of the cave.
(07:31):
David and the owner didn't want to panic the town if there wasn't a reason to
do so, and they wanted to try and get Bill out themselves.
Now, Bill was the largest person in the group. At 27 years old,
he's 6 foot 2 inches tall and weighs 230 pounds.
So he's a pretty big guy to be navigating this area of the Cape.
(07:52):
And the size difference between him and everyone else on top of that made things more difficult.
It wouldn't be until 10.30 that night, three hours after Bill got stuck,
that the three cavers that left the cave earlier managed to contact the Cave
City Volunteer Fire Department.
Other rescuers were also alerted to go help Free Bill and they worked throughout the night.
(08:18):
Now, Buzzard's Roost Cave gets pretty chilly for a Kentucky cave and temperatures
inside were around 44 degrees Fahrenheit or six and a half degrees Celsius.
As the fire department and other cavers worked to free Bill,
he started becoming hypothermic and stopped responding to questions after 1 a.m.
(08:38):
They tried several methods to free Bill, including making the hole that he was
in bigger, but the area was too unstable to do it without putting everyone in more danger.
So they did what they could and had one very small caver squeeze over Bill and
work from inside where he was trapped.
They dressed the cut on Bill's head and gave him oxygen.
(09:00):
Now, Bill wasn't an experienced caver. In fact, he was very inexperienced,
but when he was younger, he loved camping and gardening.
Bill loved the feral animals at the zoo and in the forest preserves.
It's why two years before this trip to Cave City, he started working with the
Federal Environmental Protection Agency.
(09:21):
Bill wanted to protect the environment. He loved nature and was an amateur photographer too.
Jim and Bill grew up together after meeting in Boy Scouts.
And this trip was something they were both so excited for, because it was their
first organized caving trip.
They were both outdoorsy types and had been in caves before, but nothing like this.
(09:44):
And after being trapped for seven hours, Bill's pulse was lost around 5 o'clock that morning.
The Kentucky Spellio Fest was happening at Smith's Grove nearby.
By, so around 6 30 a.m. they managed to get a crew of four dozen small cavers
attending the event to come out and try and get Bill's remains out of the cave.
(10:05):
He was officially pronounced dead at 7 o'clock Monday morning.
It was a very difficult process and removing Bill took until almost 1 in the
afternoon to get him out.
Bill was inside Buzzard's Roost Cave for 17 hours. The Kentucky medical examiner
determined the cause of death was positional asphyxia.
(10:27):
Bill's weight on his diaphragm and chest prevented him from breathing in the
head-down position he was in.
Around 200 paramedics, firefighters, cave explorers, and mappers worked to get Bill out.
Now, there were so many red flags in everything I just told you,
and because of how the situation happened and how everything seemed fine to
(10:49):
these people who are not familiar with caving, until it was very clearly not
fine anymore, I'm going to break it down.
First thing, the cavers on the tour were not provided helmets.
They should have had helmets.
The flashlights they were given were handheld, and they weren't given enough lights to begin with.
So with only having handheld flashlights when you're climbing on the ladder,
(11:12):
you can't hold the light yourself.
The only lighting you will have is from someone above or below lighting the way for you.
When you're climbing a cable ladder, you should be belayed.
So the person climbing should be attached to a rope that someone else is holding
or using a belay device to control the rope. The rope should be tight enough
that if you're climbing and slip, you don't swing out or free fall,
(11:36):
but not so tight that it's hard to climb.
So already there's like three major things that David failed to do.
Then there's the fact that Bill was wearing tennis shoes.
If he was wearing boots like everyone on the tour should have been,
he would have had an easier time climbing the ladder.
He also probably would have had a better grip if he was wearing gloves,
(11:57):
considering the cold temperatures of the cave. If he had gloves on,
his hands would have been warm enough to take them off to climb and have a good grit.
But since it was cold, his hands probably had a hard time grabbing the already
difficult-to-climb ladder.
And speaking of the temperatures, a 44 degrees cave puts you in serious risk
of hypothermia and requires thermal underwear and caving suits.
(12:20):
All the cavers on the tour were in light, casual clothing.
Now, for David's action specifically, he left the tourists on their own when
they were most tired and at higher risk of having an accident.
Then, after Bill's fall, they chose to exit the cave instead of calling for rescue.
If they had called for rescue when Bill fell, it's almost certain he would have made it out alive.
(12:44):
And once they got up the ladders and he had to go through the slot where he
got stuck, David is the one who told him to go in headfirst in the way that he did.
Now even though they were told that the tour was for the more daring adventurers
the reality is with cave tours pretty much everyone going on them is not experienced.
(13:04):
They don't know enough to recognize the true level of danger,
how exhausted they actually are, if the right techniques are being done,
and if the equipment they're using is appropriate.
You don't know what you don't know. So really, everyone should have been treated
as if it was the first cave they had ever stepped into and monitored closely.
But the truth is, it was when Bill got stuck with his head down that it was over.
(13:30):
Apparently the methods they were using to move Bill, dragging him along with
the rope, pushing and pulling him, it's not how someone still alive should be
moved because it causes more injury.
He would have gotten out if rescuers were called immediately and David and the
owner didn't try to handle things in-house.
And Bill's family felt the same because they sued David and the owner,
(13:54):
Gordon Hall. all, although part of it was to get legislation changed to protect people in the future.
Now, David and Gordon argued in court that Bill had signed away his rights to
sue for negligence by signing the waiver.
But here's the thing. Kentucky law is kind of against these waivers,
especially when the parties involved don't have equal bargaining powers, like in this case.
(14:18):
Bill, an inexperienced caver, was relying heavily on the tour guide and cave
operators for his safety.
The court looked at whether he signed the waiver voluntarily and if these tours
are really in the public's best interest.
Kentucky courts have a history of being wary of these waivers,
especially when public safety is at stake.
(14:39):
And cave tours aren't really like car or bike races, which involve a certain
level of accepted risks.
Given all these factors, the court decided not to grant partial summary judgment
in favor of David and Gordon.
Bill didn't know all the risks, and his life depended on the cave operators
and their decisions, not on his own experience or judgment.
(15:02):
That release form and advertising of the cave tour was more of an enticement
than a real warning, and it failed to actually explain the dangers of the cave.
The release form said, quote, we the undersigned hereby accept the following
special conditions, and in recognition that speleology is an inherently dangerous
(15:23):
recreational activity,
we voluntarily assume And shall indemnify and hold the owners,
operators, and employees of Buzzard's Roost Cave harmless from all claims, suits, actions,
damages, and costs of every name and description arising out of or resulting
from the privileges granted by this permit,
(15:45):
including damages caused by or resulting from the sole or joint negligence of
the owners, operators, or employees of Buzzard's Roost Cave.
So in the end, the court chose not to expand exceptions for these liability waivers.
(16:06):
The safety of individuals like Bill took precedence.
This was the first caving death like this in the area in two decades.
Before it, Floyd Collins' entrapment happened not too far from there,
and it was something everyone standing around watching Bill's rescue kept bringing up.
I'll link the episode I did covering that tragedy in the show notes.
(16:28):
Bill's sister said he died doing what he enjoyed the most, in Mother Earth.
But Jim had a different tune.
He said after returning to Chicago, he had nightmares of Bill falling.
He said in an interview that after someone gets hurt in a cave like his best
friend, bleeding at the bottom of said cave, the best help that the cave operators
(16:49):
chose to get was themselves.
He didn't think the operators were thinking with Bell's best interest in mind.
Jim also said that the worst part of the accident was the eight-hour drive home.
It felt like an eternity to come down with three people and go back with two.
There are a lot of lessons with this one but I think one thing I should say
(17:12):
is to never let a company handle their mistakes in-house, especially when it
affects you or your loved ones.
Always get outside help. Do not let them talk you out of it.
Stay safe and see you next week.
Music.
Today's occurrence happens in a cave in Kentucky. When three friends went on
what was supposed to be a one-day adventure, they were excited to be exploring
an attraction that was described as treacherous for beginners.
But by the end of the trip, one of the friends would be trapped and completely
stuck between several rocks.
(00:21):
I'm Tatiana Bunch, and this is the story of William Coughlin.
Music.
On Friday, May 28th, William, who went by Bill, and his two friends,
Jim Giacalla and Kevin Feeley, left for a weekend trip.
(00:45):
It was Memorial Day weekend, and they traveled from Oak Forest,
Illinois, to Cave City, Kentucky.
They were all in their 20s, looking for an adventure, and while they were in
Cave City, they had a great time exploring and enjoying the long holiday weekend.
Today, there are amusement parks, museums, and lots of tourist attractions.
(01:08):
While they were exploring the attractions, they discovered a brochure for Buzzard's
Roost Cave, offering two kinds of tours.
There's the safe scenic historic tour and the riskier wild cave tour.
Both open to the public and both guided.
The historic tour took you to areas in the cave that were easy to navigate and walk through.
(01:32):
The second tour was the wild cave tour and it was made for the more daring visitors.
A guide would take you to explore the untouched areas of the cave.
And you had to twist, crawl, and squeeze through lower passages.
The trio planned to check it out during their weekend trip.
Friday and Saturday were filled with exploring Cave City and enjoying the public and private caves.
(01:57):
The public caves were fun, but the private ones were prettier,
so Saturday night they went to bed excited for their plans the next day.
On Sunday, May 30, 1993, Bill, Jim, and Kevin decided to try out Buzzard's Roost Cave.
They wanted to try the historic tour first. And like with most things that have
(02:19):
risks, to do that tour, they had to sign a liability release form.
They all signed their names on the same liability form, saying if anything happened
during their time at the cave, they would not take legal action against the
owners or any party related to the cave.
But before they started on the historic tour, Kevin changed his mind and backed out.
(02:43):
So Bill and Jim continued the tour without him. Cave manager Dave Harden led the tour.
Bill and Jim had a good time doing the historic tour and felt like they could
do the more challenging tour too.
So they decided to try the Wild Cave tour later that afternoon.
For the Wild Cave tour, four other people joined Bill and Jim,
(03:05):
and they all paid David to guide that one too.
Everyone again signed a liability form to do the wild cave tour starting at 4 30 p.m.
David handed out two flashlights for the group to share and briefed everyone.
He told them that he would lead the tour and that every person after him should
go through the cave the exact same way as the person in front of them did.
(03:28):
So if the person in front of you crawled a specific way, then you should follow
them crawling the same way.
Kind of like the game Follow the Leader.
Now, the wild tour had a different entrance than the historic tour.
For this one, they had to start by going through a narrow crawlway.
After crawling through tight passages for a while, they went up a narrow, tight slot.
(03:51):
And they met the first challenge, a ladder. The first ladder was a 30-foot cable
ladder with wooden rungs.
It hung over a 25-foot deep pit.
After the group went down the ladder, they crawled a bit more before reaching a second ladder.
The second ladder was shorter but harder to navigate because it hung over protruding rocks.
(04:13):
It was around 15 to 20 feet, and it hung over a 42-foot deep pit.
But because of how rocks pushed into it, it was hard for anyone to have a proper grip while climbing.
But the group pressed on, climbing down the second ladder.
By the way, both ladders were homemade and permanently installed in the cave.
(04:34):
After more crawling, they reached an area called the Big Room.
David declared the official tour over and gave them free reign to explore nearby passages.
Passages they explored for a couple of hours before David
got everyone together around seven o'clock and led
the way back once they made it back to the
second ladder David said they were behind schedule and
(04:56):
that he needed to check in on the surface so he left to make a phone call and
this is where reports differ some reports say David told the group that if they
weren't out in 45 minutes he would come back to get them and other reports say
that David left to make a phone
call and after he didn't come back 30 to 45 minutes later the group tried to leave on their own.
(05:20):
So either way 45 minutes goes by and the tour guide is nowhere to be found.
The group starts climbing the second ladder and two of them manage to make it
up but then 27 year old Bill tried to climb it.
He couldn't get past the rock sticking out halfway up so he climbed back down
(05:40):
and let two more people in the caving group climb up instead.
Then Bill tried again. And again, he couldn't get past the rock halfway up.
At this point, Jim asked two people that had already climbed up to keep going
so they could leave and find David.
Jim and Bill waited a while, but with no sign of David, Bill tried to climb the ladder again.
(06:03):
But this time, he slipped and fell. Well, Bill's hand lost its grip at the rock
and hit his back on a ledge on the way down.
He fell 30 feet before landing on his head at the bottom.
He did not have a helmet on. No one in the group did since the tour didn't provide one for them.
So when Bill landed headfirst on the rocks, he started bleeding immediately
(06:26):
and heavily from a two-inch cut on his scalp. out.
Jim told the other two in the group, who were still waiting at the top, to leave and get help.
They left and found David, who came back.
But David returned, without a medical kit, and he didn't call for help.
It was decided that Bill could get out of the cave on his own,
(06:47):
so the remaining cavers pushed and pulled him up the pit.
I can only speculate how that was decided, considering Bill was slipping in
and out of consciousness after hitting his head.
But after that, they made their way to the first ladder, the 25-foot one.
They wrapped rope around him again and helped him up.
(07:07):
Now after that was an area that they were supposed to crawl through.
When Bill tried to go down the v-floored slot headfirst, he got stuck.
He had one hand between his stomach and the rock, and the other hand was pinned behind his back.
At this point, there was one caver in front of him and three on the other side, close to the entrance.
The three on the entrance side left to get the owner of the cave.
(07:31):
David and the owner didn't want to panic the town if there wasn't a reason to
do so, and they wanted to try and get Bill out themselves.
Now, Bill was the largest person in the group. At 27 years old,
he's 6 foot 2 inches tall and weighs 230 pounds.
So he's a pretty big guy to be navigating this area of the Cape.
(07:52):
And the size difference between him and everyone else on top of that made things more difficult.
It wouldn't be until 10.30 that night, three hours after Bill got stuck,
that the three cavers that left the cave earlier managed to contact the Cave
City Volunteer Fire Department.
Other rescuers were also alerted to go help Free Bill and they worked throughout the night.
(08:18):
Now, Buzzard's Roost Cave gets pretty chilly for a Kentucky cave and temperatures
inside were around 44 degrees Fahrenheit or six and a half degrees Celsius.
As the fire department and other cavers worked to free Bill,
he started becoming hypothermic and stopped responding to questions after 1 a.m.
(08:38):
They tried several methods to free Bill, including making the hole that he was
in bigger, but the area was too unstable to do it without putting everyone in more danger.
So they did what they could and had one very small caver squeeze over Bill and
work from inside where he was trapped.
They dressed the cut on Bill's head and gave him oxygen.
(09:00):
Now, Bill wasn't an experienced caver. In fact, he was very inexperienced,
but when he was younger, he loved camping and gardening.
Bill loved the feral animals at the zoo and in the forest preserves.
It's why two years before this trip to Cave City, he started working with the
Federal Environmental Protection Agency.
(09:21):
Bill wanted to protect the environment. He loved nature and was an amateur photographer too.
Jim and Bill grew up together after meeting in Boy Scouts.
And this trip was something they were both so excited for, because it was their
first organized caving trip.
They were both outdoorsy types and had been in caves before, but nothing like this.
(09:44):
And after being trapped for seven hours, Bill's pulse was lost around 5 o'clock that morning.
The Kentucky Spellio Fest was happening at Smith's Grove nearby.
By, so around 6 30 a.m. they managed to get a crew of four dozen small cavers
attending the event to come out and try and get Bill's remains out of the cave.
(10:05):
He was officially pronounced dead at 7 o'clock Monday morning.
It was a very difficult process and removing Bill took until almost 1 in the
afternoon to get him out.
Bill was inside Buzzard's Roost Cave for 17 hours. The Kentucky medical examiner
determined the cause of death was positional asphyxia.
(10:27):
Bill's weight on his diaphragm and chest prevented him from breathing in the
head-down position he was in.
Around 200 paramedics, firefighters, cave explorers, and mappers worked to get Bill out.
Now, there were so many red flags in everything I just told you,
and because of how the situation happened and how everything seemed fine to
(10:49):
these people who are not familiar with caving, until it was very clearly not
fine anymore, I'm going to break it down.
First thing, the cavers on the tour were not provided helmets.
They should have had helmets.
The flashlights they were given were handheld, and they weren't given enough lights to begin with.
So with only having handheld flashlights when you're climbing on the ladder,
(11:12):
you can't hold the light yourself.
The only lighting you will have is from someone above or below lighting the way for you.
When you're climbing a cable ladder, you should be belayed.
So the person climbing should be attached to a rope that someone else is holding
or using a belay device to control the rope. The rope should be tight enough
that if you're climbing and slip, you don't swing out or free fall,
(11:36):
but not so tight that it's hard to climb.
So already there's like three major things that David failed to do.
Then there's the fact that Bill was wearing tennis shoes.
If he was wearing boots like everyone on the tour should have been,
he would have had an easier time climbing the ladder.
He also probably would have had a better grip if he was wearing gloves,
(11:57):
considering the cold temperatures of the cave. If he had gloves on,
his hands would have been warm enough to take them off to climb and have a good grit.
But since it was cold, his hands probably had a hard time grabbing the already
difficult-to-climb ladder.
And speaking of the temperatures, a 44 degrees cave puts you in serious risk
of hypothermia and requires thermal underwear and caving suits.
(12:20):
All the cavers on the tour were in light, casual clothing.
Now, for David's action specifically, he left the tourists on their own when
they were most tired and at higher risk of having an accident.
Then, after Bill's fall, they chose to exit the cave instead of calling for rescue.
If they had called for rescue when Bill fell, it's almost certain he would have made it out alive.
(12:44):
And once they got up the ladders and he had to go through the slot where he
got stuck, David is the one who told him to go in headfirst in the way that he did.
Now even though they were told that the tour was for the more daring adventurers
the reality is with cave tours pretty much everyone going on them is not experienced.
(13:04):
They don't know enough to recognize the true level of danger,
how exhausted they actually are, if the right techniques are being done,
and if the equipment they're using is appropriate.
You don't know what you don't know. So really, everyone should have been treated
as if it was the first cave they had ever stepped into and monitored closely.
But the truth is, it was when Bill got stuck with his head down that it was over.
(13:30):
Apparently the methods they were using to move Bill, dragging him along with
the rope, pushing and pulling him, it's not how someone still alive should be
moved because it causes more injury.
He would have gotten out if rescuers were called immediately and David and the
owner didn't try to handle things in-house.
And Bill's family felt the same because they sued David and the owner,
(13:54):
Gordon Hall. all, although part of it was to get legislation changed to protect people in the future.
Now, David and Gordon argued in court that Bill had signed away his rights to
sue for negligence by signing the waiver.
But here's the thing. Kentucky law is kind of against these waivers,
especially when the parties involved don't have equal bargaining powers, like in this case.
(14:18):
Bill, an inexperienced caver, was relying heavily on the tour guide and cave
operators for his safety.
The court looked at whether he signed the waiver voluntarily and if these tours
are really in the public's best interest.
Kentucky courts have a history of being wary of these waivers,
especially when public safety is at stake.
(14:39):
And cave tours aren't really like car or bike races, which involve a certain
level of accepted risks.
Given all these factors, the court decided not to grant partial summary judgment
in favor of David and Gordon.
Bill didn't know all the risks, and his life depended on the cave operators
and their decisions, not on his own experience or judgment.
(15:02):
That release form and advertising of the cave tour was more of an enticement
than a real warning, and it failed to actually explain the dangers of the cave.
The release form said, quote, we the undersigned hereby accept the following
special conditions, and in recognition that speleology is an inherently dangerous
(15:23):
recreational activity,
we voluntarily assume And shall indemnify and hold the owners,
operators, and employees of Buzzard's Roost Cave harmless from all claims, suits, actions,
damages, and costs of every name and description arising out of or resulting
from the privileges granted by this permit,
(15:45):
including damages caused by or resulting from the sole or joint negligence of
the owners, operators, or employees of Buzzard's Roost Cave.
So in the end, the court chose not to expand exceptions for these liability waivers.
(16:06):
The safety of individuals like Bill took precedence.
This was the first caving death like this in the area in two decades.
Before it, Floyd Collins' entrapment happened not too far from there,
and it was something everyone standing around watching Bill's rescue kept bringing up.
I'll link the episode I did covering that tragedy in the show notes.
(16:28):
Bill's sister said he died doing what he enjoyed the most, in Mother Earth.
But Jim had a different tune.
He said after returning to Chicago, he had nightmares of Bill falling.
He said in an interview that after someone gets hurt in a cave like his best
friend, bleeding at the bottom of said cave, the best help that the cave operators
(16:49):
chose to get was themselves.
He didn't think the operators were thinking with Bell's best interest in mind.
Jim also said that the worst part of the accident was the eight-hour drive home.
It felt like an eternity to come down with three people and go back with two.
There are a lot of lessons with this one but I think one thing I should say
(17:12):
is to never let a company handle their mistakes in-house, especially when it
affects you or your loved ones.
Always get outside help. Do not let them talk you out of it.
Stay safe and see you next week.
Music.
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