Firefighters rescue injured man from cave after 21-hour operation

Firefighters have brought an injured man to the surface from a normally inaccessible cave near Rudice in the Moravian Karst. The man was handed over to paramedics on Sunday morning after a demanding rescue operation that lasted nearly 21 hours. He had been trapped an estimated 50 to 70 metres underground and some 250 to 300 metres from the cave entrance. Fire crews had been working at the site since early Saturday afternoon, with the transport through narrow cave passages alone taking about five hours. Firefighters described the rescue as an exceptional and extremely challenging operation without precedent in Czech conditions.