Skip to main content

Purdue University student falls 200 feet to his death inside Alabama cave

An experienced young caver plummeted 200 feet to his death while rappelling inside an Alabama cavern, police and university officials said.

Trever Louis Col, a 21-year-old senior at Purdue University in Indiana, died Saturday at Alabama’s Valhalla Cave in Jackson County after traveling nearly 500 miles with four other students who enjoyed spelunking and exploring cave systems, WHNT reported.

“They’re all cavers,” Jackson County Sheriff Chuck Phillips said of the group. “They do this for fun and sport.”

The thrill-seeking youngsters camped inside the cave overnight. Col fell early Saturday after the group awoke to rappel some 227 feet below, Phillips said.
"They were all going to go down in the cave and they were in the pit, more-less a vertical drop,” the sheriff said.

Col, originally from Austin, Texas, died on impact after his rigging came loose due to a knot in the rope. He then fell roughly 200 feet to his death as he tried to fix his equipment, Phillips said.

The students, who had the necessary permits to explore the cave, had to drive more than a mile in order to get cellphone service to call emergency crews. In all, the process to recover Col’s body took more than four hours, Phillips said.

The Valhalla Cave Preserve is known for its “beautiful 227-foot entrance pitch” that stretches more than a mile to the bottom, according to its website, which describes it as “one of the finest pit
  caves” in the southeastern United States.
Col began studying at Purdue in 2016 and was an experienced caver who climbed in exotic locations like China, his Facebook profile shows.

The mechanical engineering student in Purdue’s honor college was set to receive a bachelor’s degree next year and his master’s in 2021, university officials confirmed.

Col, who spent a semester in China at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, was also a member of the Purdue Outing Club and spent a summer as an intern at Siemens in Ohio, Purdue’s School of Mechanical Engineering said in a statement.

Col is one of three people who have died this year at the cave preserve, AL.com reported.

“Even when you’re experienced, tragic things can happen,” Jackson County Chief Deputy Rocky Harnen told the outlet.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hurricane Hits Texas, One Person Reported Dead

Hurricane Harvey hit Texas as a Category 4 storm on Friday, battering the coast with 130-mph winds and torrential rain. It was the strongest hurricane to hit the United States in more than a decade leaving a massive destruction, loss of electricity, wrecked buildings and has so far killed at least one person. Scroll down to see more pictures of the incident:
Post a Comment
Read more

Kenyan Law Court dismisses case of man seeking compensation after his wife eloped with another man from hospital

  A lawsuit filed by a man seeking to be compensated by St Mary's Mission Hospital in Kenya for allowing his wife to leave the hospital with another man after giving birth, has been struck out by a law court.    The appellant had sued the St. Mary's Mission hospital at Kakamega law courts in 2020 seeking general damages from the facility on grounds that the hospital had discharged his wife and allowed her to leave with another man. After delivering and at the time of discharge, the wife of the appellant claimed he was the baby's father.   The court of appeal judges Patrick Kiage, Mumbi Ngugi and Francis Tuiyott sitting at the Kisumu Court of Appeal, empathized with the man, but disagreed that he (the appellant) be compensated by the hospital for not detaining his wife.  They upheld the lower court's judgement which added that there's no remedy that lies in the law for such grievances.   Kiage said;   "I agree that if a man takes the woman he loves to t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Togo prime Minister Komi Klassou resigns

Togo’s prime minister and his government have resigned, the West African nation’s presidency said late Friday. President Faure Gnassingbe congratulated prime minister Komi Selom Klassou and his team for their “economic, political and social efforts and the encouraging results despite the health crisis around the world”, a statement on the presidency’s official website said. Togo has been due for a political reshuffle since Gnassingbe was reelected in February for a fourth term in office, but changes were delayed by the coronavirus pandemic. The president’s election win, which came after a constitutional change allowing him to run, extended more than a half-century of dynastic rule over the former French colony by the Gnassingbe family. The victory was disputed by the main opposition challenger, who has faced official harassment in the wake of the vote. The president has led the country of eight million people since taking over in 2005 following the death of his father Gnass...
Post a Comment
Read more