Mark Dickey Cave Rescue Update: Map Reveals Location of Trapped Explorer

A rescue operation for an American explorer trapped more than 3,000 feet below the surface in a Turkish cave is reportedly set to begin on Friday after he fell ill while on an expedition last weekend.

Mark Dickey began experiencing gastric pain while around 1,040 meters (3,412 feet) below sea level on Saturday and could not exit the cave on his own. The Hungarian Cave Rescue Service (HCRS), one of an international consortium of responders, stated he has been suffering from gastrointestinal bleeding.

In the days since, more than 200 cave rescuers from across the globe have descended on the Morca cave system in the Taurus mountains in the south of the nation to rehabilitate the 40-year-old explorer before bringing him to the surface.

The HCRS said it was able to launch a team with a doctor on Sunday to meet Dickey and the rest of the expedition at a resting site and began medical treatment on him, including a blood transfusion. It said that the cave rescue would parallel the previous record for the deepest emergency recovery of its kind, which occurred in Germany in 2014.

"Rescue missions from such deepness are very rare, extremely difficult, and need many very experienced cave rescuers," the European Cave Rescue Association (ECRA) said. It added that, as of Wednesday, teams from Bulgaria, Turkey, Italy, Croatia and Poland were assisting in the operation, with more on standby.

ECRA noted on Wednesday that Dickey's "circulation is stabilized" before the Turkish government shared footage of the American speleologist awake and able to move. In the video, he said he was "alert" but "not healed on the inside yet."

The Washington Post reported on Friday that Dickey's slow ascent back to the surface is due to begin imminently. Gretchen Baker of the National Cave Rescue Commission in the United States warned the paper that "this will not be a quick rescue due to where he is in the cave."

A map produced by HCRS shows the location of the trapped explorer in the cave, which has a maximum depth of around 4,200 feet, below several twists and turns in the narrow fissure. The rescue team will have to navigate up many sharp drops and narrow passageways to return Dickey to the surface.

Dickey is currently located in what cave explorers have dubbed the Hope bivouac. The return journey must pass through other cave sections, such as the "Enemy of Equipment" and "Desperado."

"The doctors we sent down were very successful in treating him," Cenk Yildiz, an official with Turkey's disaster relief agency, told the IHA news agency. "We are now in a position to evacuate him."

He added: "This is a difficult operation. It would take a [healthy] person 16 hours to come out. This operation will last at least three or four days."

The New Jersey cave rescue group affiliated with Dickey said he had been bleeding from his stomach but had stopped vomiting and eaten for the first time since falling ill, the Associated Press reported. The rescue operation could only commence once attending medics deemed him safe to be moved.

It remains unclear what caused the internal bleeding. "The possibilities for investigating this underground in a cave are quite small so this has to be done in a hospital," Werner Zagler, ECRA vice president, told Newsweek on Friday. "As soon as the doctors decide that the patient is able to be transported, the transport will begin."

A fundraiser was started earlier in the week to assist the volunteer organizations with the cost of the rescue, and as of Friday morning, it had raised nearly half of its $100,000 goal.

Update 10/04/23, 11:02 a.m. ET: This article was updated to include comment from Werner Zagler.