temperature of about sixty-five degrees, and a heavy wind-chill factor, plus the fact that he couldn't move at all, he started to go hypothermic, shivering violently, soon without any control.

He realized that was a dangerous enemy, so around five-fifteen P.M. (Fifteen minutes later), noticing that the floods magnitude had by then gone down noticeably, he decided to free- climb the remaining fifteen feet of the pit, still attached to the rope by the Petzl ascender, because that gave him a better chance than to free-fall seventy feet or more to a sure death. As we said, he would just pendulum into the midst of the waterfall, At the most he would only drown!

Luckily, he made it without any major problems to a point just a bit above and right in front of the ropes anchor point, where he got "off rope". After some minutes of looking around, checking-up things, and studying all the present conditions, he found a ledge here, a foot-hold there, a crack later, and a few hand holds, and managed to move twenty feet into the tube, above the waters, right to an eight foot climb, actually, an eight foot high waterfall, which he also managed to avoid. From then on, he was able to hold and just traverse right on top of the four foot deep waters and finally quite exhausted, he managed to reach room number three, where he knew he could at least stay in safety, totally away from the water, the spray and the wind.

Right outside the cave, he expected to find Lorry, but earlier she had decided to return to the Alfaro family's house, but she had lost her way in the jungle and was just wandering around hopelessly. The same thing happened to Bryan, but luckily, at some moment, one of the two shouted and was heard by the other one, and together they were able to relocate the trail, which they flagged in the event of a possible rescue.

With Lorry's broken-up Spanish, they managed to communicate the events of the day to the Alfaro family, and after that the father plus two of the toughest sons got on their way to the cave, using three of Bryan's extra-bright diving lights. Then Lorry had a sudden break-down of both mental and physical exhaustion, and she collapsed with borrowed dry clothes into a super warm and soft bed, something at that instant of absolutely first priority.

Meanwhile, with a super-generous very hot meal in his stomach ,and also dry, borrowed clothes, Bryan dedicated himself to "try and get initial response"(T.A.G.I.R.) From the local Red Cross and the Fire Brigade. He only received some very terrifying answers: the Red Cross guys didn't even have flashlights, and someone with Fire Brigade said,"he thought that, somewhere, they had short natural fiber, seven-sixteenth inch rope." Bryan knew there were at least three or four local Ciudad Neilly cavers, but he knew neither their names not their addresses, and later on, when trying to contact a couple of known cavers at San José, the capital city, all he got a catch of were answering machines, with the usual message: "when you hear the tone please...!"

Definitely, to this author, that day (March 23, 1997), it was God's will, that nothing bad was to happen, at least in reference to the eight cavers visiting Carma Cave, Punteranus province, republic of Costa Rica.

I believe so, very firmly!