Injured caver came close to quitting after friend died

By Tony Wall

Kieran McKay, the injured man at the centre of a huge rescue operation in one of the world's deepest caving systems, almost gave caving away when he watched a friend drown during a record-breaking cave dive.

Rescuers reached McKay deep in the Bulmer Cave near Murchison early yesterday and began the slow process of bringing him out through a maze of tunnels, some so narrow they have names like Castration Gap.

The rescue team is unlikely to reach the surface until tonight.

McKay has leg, arm and facial injuries but is said to be in good spirits.

More than 50 cavers - many of whom know him personally - answered the call to retrieve him from 5.5km inside the mostly dry cave in what is considered the biggest caving-rescue operation in New Zealand.

McKay, aged 30, who has been involved in caving-rescue operations himself, led 10 Speleological Society members on a mapping expedition of the Pearse Resurgence near Motueka in 1995.

It was then that a Waitomo cave and rafting guide, David Weaver, drowned while he and some of the group were attempting to set a New Zealand cave-diving record of 75m.

McKay said at the time that he saw Weaver floating down and swam after him to 85m below the surface, "the most stupid thing I ever did in my life."

He tried to take Weaver's body to the surface and eventually made his way back up alone on one air tank over an hour with four stops for decompression.

"I'd got over crying by the time I got to the top ... It's hard crying underwater," he said.

He considered throwing his gear away for good but decided to stick with it.
Weaver's body was not retrieved for almost two years.

Friends of McKay, a former Waitomo Blackwater Rafting guide who works for an outdoor pursuits centre near Turangi, describe him as one of the country's best cavers.

His father, Don McKay of Maungaturoto in Northland, said his son got hooked on caving when he was in the fifth or sixth form and had been doing it ever since.

Kevin Jose, an Auckland caver who has explored the Bulmer system, said he did not like it. "For me, it was like a huge block of Weet-Bix that's had weevils through it ... It's got multiple-level passages that are all starting to break down on top of each other."

He said it was every caver's worst nightmare to get injured so far into a complex caving network.

Pictured: Kieran McKay. PICTURE / NELSON MAIL