Looking down into the blackness of a 400-foot-deep underground cavern, Alexia Hampton grabbed the rope, stepped off a rocky ledge and began her fatal descent into Surprise Pit.
The slender line snaked through her hands as she rappelled deeper into the darkness, bounding off rocky walls with her feet. The rush of water from an underground waterfall echoed through the cool void.Deep in the heart of one of the nation's premier caving areas, Surprise Pit scares even veterans. But most come out alive. Hampton, a 35-year-old spelunker from Memphis, Tenn., died this month as rescuers lifted her toward the open air, 12 hours after she fell onto a pile of stones.
The death was the second in an Alabama cave since late August after several years without a serious accident in the state. Five other cavers had to be saved in June when a cavern unexpectedly filled with water.
At least 13 people died in 133 reported caving accidents in 1994 and 1995, according to the latest figures available from the National Speleological Society in Huntsville.
Any journey toward the center of the Earth is perilous. But experts say the spate of recent accidents proves the human element is the most dangerous thing underground.
"Of all the deaths and rescues we have had, every one of them has been the result of negligence or inexperience - except in 1984, when a bus-sized rock fell on two Georgia Tech students," said Jim McCamy, a caver who also is the emergency management director of Jackson County.
McCamy said it was a bad decision that resulted in the Aug. 30 death of Karen Prowett, 46, of Alpharetta, Ga. Prowett was rappelling into Stephens Gap Cave when she attached a metal restraining device to the wrong rope, falling 100 feet after coming to the bottom of a line that lacked a knot at the end.
Authorities still haven't determined why Hampton went into an uncontrolled descent, said Ed Nicholas, operations chief for the Huntsville Cave Rescue Unit.
Companions describing the scene said Hampton slid down the rope as it weaved through a metal guide attached to her body harness.
Hampton could no longer touch walls of the pit as it flared into a bell-shaped expanse 200 feet across. She was alone, with only her rope, her equipment and her experience.
Dangling only 50 feet above her husband and two others, Hampton lost control. She crashed onto the rock with a thud, breaking a leg and scrambling her internal organs.
"I'll be fine," she told rescuers.
Rescuers strapped her into a skid and brought her up to within 50 feet of the mouth of the cave when her heart gave out.
Surprise Pit has one of the deepest vertical drops of any known cave in North America. It is near the center of the popular TAG Area - that spot where Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia converge in a geological zone that, viewed from inside out, resembles Swiss cheese.