An injured man was rescued Thursday after spending two weeks trapped inside the bowels of Germany's deepest cave, the BBC reported.
Rescue workers embarked on an agonizing journey to release German cave researcher Johan Westhauser, who was trapped 3,280 feet underground in the Riesending Cave since June 8 after being severely injured by falling rocks.
Located in the Bavarian Alps, the cave is said to be a complicated series of vertical tunnels and bottlenecks. It took hundreds of cave experts from several countries to help rescue Westhauser, who suffered wounds to the head and chest.
"It was one of the most difficult rescue operations in the history of the mountain rescue service," Klemens Reindl, head of the rescue effort, told the BBC. "The international character of the mission was remarkable."
A total of 728 people from Austria, Croatia, Switzerland, Germany and Italy joined the operation at the cave near the Austrian border, the Houston Chronicle reported.
Officials were uncertain Westhauser would make it. A doctor who managed to reach the wounded man several days ago said he was at risk of hypothermia and needed to be kept flat on his back.
Westhauser had to be manually lifted up the cave's narrow shafts and passages on a fiberglass stretcher, the BBC reported. Rescuers took breaks along the way before finally ascending a 600-foot vertical shaft that was followed by rushing Westhauser to the hospital. His current condition is not immediately known, but Reindle said Thursday that he "came through the rescue operation well," according to the Chronicle.
"Since the birth of caving, there have been only two incidents of this depth, complexity and difficulty," Roberto Conti, a rescuer from Italy, told the newspaper.
Westhauser and two other companions journeyed back to the cave in June to conduct research when the accident occurred. One companion stayed with Westhauser while the other climbed to the surface for help.
In 1995, Westhauser was part of the team that first discovered the cave that was named Riesending, meaning "giant thing," due to its size.
