GAINESBORO, TN — Josh Bratchley isn’t a stranger to the deep crevices of caves and the danger they present. A member of the British Cave Rescue Council, he helped save 12 boys and their soccer coach who were trapped in a cave in Thailand in July 2018. On Wednesday, Bratchley himself was rescued from a cave in Tennessee.
Bratchley had been trapped there for more than 28 hours without food and water. Bratchley was calm when Edd Sorenson, regional coordinator for the International Underwater Cave Rescue and Recovery Team, found him around 7 p.m. Wednesday. His knowledge of caves and professional demeanor probably helped him survive, according to Sorenson.
A search for Bratchley was mounted after he failed to return Tuesday from the Mill Pond Cave, where he and other divers from the United Kingdom were laying new line to guide divers through low-visibility water. Other divers from the British Cave Rescue Council went back in for Bratchley after he didn’t surface but were unable to find him, the Jackson County Emergency Management Agency said at a news conference Wednesday night. His team called 911 around 1:15 Wednesday morning.
Sorenson said Bratchley’s line either broke or he wasn’t able to find it. An experienced cave diver, Bratchley probably attempted some “self rescues,” news station WTVF reported. He pulled himself out of the water to avoid hypothermia in the 55-degree water and found a “remarkably big” pocket of air to stay in until he could be rescued.
Bratchley was found less than 500 feet from the surface, but Sorensen said that “when you’re going through spots that are a little bit bigger than your head, it takes a long time to get to those few feet.”
“I could’ve gotten to him sooner, but I was looking at every nook and cranny looking for a body. … I popped up off the surface and he was right in front of me. He said, ‘Thank you. Thank you. Who are you?’ “
As with the dramatic rescue from the Thai cave last year, Bratchley’s rescuers feared he wouldn’t be found alive. Typically in instances when divers are sent into caves after someone is reported missing, they see their job as a recovery rather than a rescue mission, Sorenson said, adding that “when you have to come up with body bags all the time, and you get to send one home, it’s an exceptional feeling.”
He described the cave as a “very silty, dangerous low cave,” according to a BBC report.
Jackson County Emergency Management Agency spokesman Derek Woolbright said Bratchley was covered in mud, but awake, alert and oriented when rescuers found him. He was also hungry.
“His only request when he got to the surface was that he wanted some pizza,” Woolbright said, according to an account in The New York Times.
Bratchley dives as a hobby and is a meteorologist for the Met Office, the national weather service in Great Britain.