Explorer Rescued From Peru Cave After 12 Days

Cecilio Lopez fell, injured back deep inside Inti Machay cave
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Oct 1, 2014 12:22 PM CDT
Explorer Rescued From Peru Cave After 12 Days
In this Sept. 23, 2014 photo, rescue workers gather outside the Inti Machay cave where Spaniard Cecilio Lopez is trapped in Peru.   (AP Photo/Chachapoyas Territory Police)

A Spanish speleologist has been rescued in Peru after spending 12 days trapped about 1,300 feet underground in a cave in Peru's remote Amazon region. Cecilio Lopez was hurt when he fell about 16 feet inside the Inti Machay cave in a ravine in Leimebamba district. Rescuers brought 44-year-old Lopez out of the mouth of the cave yesterday to cheers from an international team of 107 people who joined in the effort to get him out. The rescuers, who included 58 Spaniards, hugged each other in excitement.

Rescuers said they had been getting food, water, and medicine to Lopez, but his extraction was made difficult by the remoteness of the cave and the cavern itself, which narrows at places. Doctors previously diagnosed Lopez as having two injured lumbar vertebras and he was carried into a tent and kept lying on the rescue stretcher. Peruvian civil defense officials said he would be flown by an air force helicopter to Lima. (More Peru stories.)

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