Bruce Brewer
 

Caving Photos
His work



(Reprinted from TAG-Net)
Bruce...
By: Paul Aughey (Atlanta, Georgia)


It is with great sadness that I must report the death of Bruce Brewer in Climax Cave, located in South Georgia, on July 12, 2003. Bruce was leading a group of novices in the cave on the standard "beginner loop". Some of the people on the trip had been in the cave before, though they were all new to caving and some had never been caving before. Bruce has lead this exact trip several dozen times, and checking my cave log I have been on this exact trip with Bruce five times, though we both did the trip many more times than that. We both have been in the cave in excess of 100 times.

The "loop" for novices usually consists of a six-hour trip, belaying down the Dry Chimney, through the North Climax crawls to the Junction Room, and then through the Turnage Room by one of three ways to New Formation Room and Razor Hall. Then, we would take the group another way back out to Turnage Room and out of the cave. The connection of Turnage Room to Razor Hall is a 20-30 partition that can be crawled around on a thin ledge over the water or if the water is down under the partition. The water in Razor Hall/New Formation room is the Floridian Aquifer and varies depending on how dry or wet it's been over the past few weeks and months. "The Razor", is a large stalactite that hangs down into the middle of the pond is used to gage the depth of the water. I have seen the Razor out of the water by four feet or under water by two feet. When the Razor is out of the water by four feet there is about three feet of air space under the partition. According to a girl on the trip, Bruce was very excited that the water levels were the highest he had ever seen. This means that water levels were at least touching the Razor, and that there would be no visible airspace under the partition, though air pockets were possible. The girl I talked to who was on the trip mentioned that she had not seen any airspace. It is quite fun to "sump" from one room to the next by using the air bells in this and other areas of Climax, so much so that we call it "sumping". The water is deep and these pools are anywhere from mid-section to out-right swimming, though the distance isn't far. On this trip, according to the novice on the trip, Bruce went to "check out" the lead while they waited as he had in other areas of the cave earlier in the trip. He swam under the partition, intending to find an air bell or be able to swim across. He did not return. While I can't say whether he "got lost", missed an air bell, banged his head, the swim was too long, or what without speculating why he died, the fact is that Bruce had gone through this section of cave dozens of times. The water levels are aquifer controlled and take weeks to rise or fall. He mentioned that water levels are exceptionally high. In such a situation I would think that the passage would be impassible. Apparently, it was. The novices waited a long while for Bruce to return. When they switched off their lights to wait for him, they noticed a glow from under the partition. They could not see his body, but locked hands and went into the 68F water to "feel for him" with their feet but the water was too deep. With no other options, they left the cave working together to find the way out. Bruce had pointed out to them significant features on the way in, so while it was slow going, they found the way out through numerous mazy passages on their own and called a rescue.

The police got a hold of Will Summer (Bainbridge, GA) who led a dive team to the sump and extract the body from the pond. Apparently Bruce's body was out of the sump by very late 7/12/2003. Later, with little sleep, Will and a few other cavers and firemen returned around 13:00 7/13/2003 with a sked, gauze, rope, and other material to package the body and start hauling it out of the cave. Climax Cave, while a fun tourist trip, is not an easy place for a body recovery. The entrance is a massive sink with a hike down a slick slope to a series of chimneys. The climbs/rappel is 15-25 feet depending on the chimney, walking north through about fifteen hundred feet of passage, a seven hundred foot belly and hands-and-knees crawl (some areas quite tight and angled on sand and rock), lots of walking and scrambling, and considerable maze passage. This "first team" got the body all the way into the start of the crawls by around 20:30 on 7/13/2003. It was an amazing haul by about eight people. This is where Tim White, Brent Aulenbach, and I encountered them.

The first rescue crew was very tired having been in the cave hauling for many hours. We gave them all our food and water. All but David and Will headed out from their team. Tim White had come down from Atlanta with me and six others. I had contacted cavers in Gainesville and Tampa, while other Atlanta cavers (and other places) were coordinated through Tim White, Sue Aughey and Nancy Aulenbach, and others. Tom Stodd (Tallahassee, FL) lead the first digging crew (second team), and Matt Kalch (Niceville, FL) lead the third (also digging) team into the cave. Tim White's group (that I was on) was the forth team in the cave and we had many others on the way. The first team with Will headed out while David, Will, Brent, and I hauled the body to the beginning of the tight crawls. Will and David then headed out to rest while Brent and I started digging and hammering. Eventually Bil Davis, Tom Stodd, and John (Rocco) Stembel joined our group in the end of the crawls hammering on the areas known as Stand And Fall (a tight 1' wide by 2' high and 10' long rock on rock passage) and Second Dig (a 1' high by 1' wide by 5' long sand tube). After and hour or two of hammering and digging by us and many other cavers, Tim White arrived again and said to leave the rock removal to the air chisel. This device built by Brian Williams and run with the help of Sullivan and Caren Beck was the perfect tool to "shave" the walls of the cave to allow for the passage of the sked. It took four 80cu tanks and a lot of hammering and rock removal to enlarge Stand and Fall enough for a sked to fit. Rocco, Tom, Bil, Brent, and I rigged pulleys with webbing and biners and haul straps to handle the sked. It took about one hour to get through the 10' section of Stand and Fall, quite often we were moving a millimeter at a time. The air chisel crew lead the way out before the sked to remove sharp bends and continue to enlarge the way. The digging crews (20-30 people at least) had done an amazing job and lowered the sand levels by up to three feet in some areas. On the way out, Tom Stodd and I were amazed that "the Key Hole", a 1' by 1' by 3' long rock constriction had been completely removed and was now 2' wide and 4' high. By 03:30 on 7/14/2003 we had gotten the sked out of the sand crawls and another team took over to take the sked the rest of the way out of the cave. It was all over except for the final removal of people and gear from the cave. I exited the cave around 05:30 on 7/13/2003 with the last of the cavers.

While Bruce's death hurts very much - he was a very good long-time friend of mine and a very humorous and fun person to cave and hang-out with - I am very happy with the enormous response by police, fire squad (they worked very hard!), and the many cavers who had driven from as far as Alabama and Tampa to stay up all night and work very hard. Thank you to the people who brought food and water into the cave, who manned phone stations, and who were on standby all night in case we needed you. Thank you, thank you very much, I needed you.

-Paul




Brooksville Ridge Pictures By Bruce Brewer