This had to be quite a body-blow to the guy’s self-esteem.
60 hours of “Damn. They don’t even know I’m missing. They don’t even care if I live or die in this damn cave. I’ve been stuck here for hours and no one has even noticed.”
I hope the kid is resilient, because that would screw me up.
It’s understandable, but the leader of the second group should have ensured that all members of his group were accounted for after they left the cave. And you would think the driver of the car he came in would realize he had one fewer passenger and ask where he was.
This, especially among a group of people who don’t all know each other. Somebody’s got to be in charge of making sure that everyone who went in, came out.
There might have been a certain amount of people switching cars between the trip down and the trip back, which would have made his absence at this point harder to notice. I’ve been on plenty of trips like that, some of which were caving trips, some were hiking trips, etc.
Quite common for commercial caves, or for caves on private property where the property owners don’t want people trespassing or getting hurt.
Yeah, they probably just piled into the vehicles and took off when there was nobody still left standing around. But still, the driver should have checked to see that everyone who had come with him had found a ride back. Even if everyone had come out of the cave, someone might have gone off to take a leak. And the first account mentions they found “a pile of clothing” in one of the vehicles. Sounds like more than just a forgotten sweater. One would think the driver might make more of an effort to find out who it belonged to.
Like most screw-ups, this required mistakes all along the line, not just a single slip up. The trip leaders bear the most responsibility for not having done something as basic as taking a head count, but it sounds like none of the other participants were paying much attention either.