Trapped underground: my 54-hour cave rescue

Lives Less Ordinary

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.6 • 814 Ratings

🗓️ 10 November 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Trapped underground: my 54-hour cave rescue.

For George Linnane, an experienced caver from England, being underground is his happy place, somewhere he can feel calm away from the chaos of daily life. But when he and two friends set out for a routine trip in the Ogof Ffynnon Ddu cave system in Wales one Saturday lunchtime in November 2021, they couldn’t know it would turn into a nightmare.

After a stone bridge gave way underneath him, George fell ten metres onto solid rock and couldn’t move. He suffered a broken leg, shattered jaw, a punctured lung and spleen and was drifting in and out of consciousness. When news of his predicament got out, 300 extraordinary volunteers from around the UK mobilised and came to his rescue. Thanks to the quick thinking and skill of his friends and the hundreds of fellow cavers who rushed to his aid, George counts himself very lucky to be alive. His remarkable true story became the longest cave rescue in UK history, taking a mammoth 54 hours to bring him back to the surface.

Lives Less Ordinary is a podcast from the BBC World Service that brings you the most incredible true stories from around the world. Each episode a guest shares their most dramatic, moving, personal story. Listen for unbelievable twists, mysteries uncovered, and inspiring journeys - spanning the entire human experience. Step into someone else’s life and expect the unexpected.

Presenter: Asya Fouks Producer: Edgar Maddicott Got a story to tell? Send an email to [email protected] or message us via WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

You can read our privacy notice here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5YD3hBqmw26B8WMHt6GkQxG/lives-less-ordinary-privacy-notice

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:07.3	Hello, I'm Kimberly Wilson.
0:09.7	I'm a psychologist, and in my new podcast, Complex, I'll be your guide through all the information
0:15.6	and misinformation that's out there about mental health.
0:19.0	I'm joined by expert guests covering topics
0:21.8	from people pleasing to perfectionism,
0:24.2	burnout to empathy,
0:25.9	to find tangible advice
0:27.3	so we can understand ourselves a little better.
0:30.5	Complex with me, Kimberly Wilson.
0:33.0	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:38.5	Breaking news now, and our rescue operation in Wales has saved a man who was trapped in a cave for two days.
0:45.6	On our way in, we had walked across a rock bridge, which is spanning a very tall, narrow passage in a cave.
0:52.4	It had been walked on many times before. All three of us had walked
0:55.7	across it to get to where we were. Mark walked across it and got to the other side and when I stepped
0:59.9	on it, it just collapsed underneath me. Stuck underground for more than 50 hours with serious injuries.
1:06.2	The world just kind of went mad. In a split second, George Linane's life changed. What was meant to be a
1:13.3	routine trip into the UK's deepest cave system became an ordeal that threatened his life.
1:19.0	When a stonebridge gave way, he fell 10 meters onto solid rock. He'd spent 54 hours severely injured,
1:26.3	trapped hundreds of meters underground, in the pitch black and freezing cold, and it would take an army of extraordinary volunteers to bring him back to the light.
1:36.7	I'm Asi Vukes, and from the BBC World Service, this is lives less ordinary.
1:46.2	Personally, the idea of waving goodbye to the sun and journeying deep underground to squeeze
	...

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