Featured Image Credit: David Webb/James Lovelock collection
Topics: History, UK News, Health, Environment
Joshua Nair
Topics: History, UK News, Health, Environment
Caving might be one of the most dangerous activities you can take up as a hobby, and if you don't believe me, listen to the story of Oscar Hackett Neil Moss.
The British student was a keen explorer and sports enthusiast and suffered one of the most grim deaths ever after he became trapped inside Peak Cavern, forever.
The Oxford undergraduate was just 20 when he went into the famous cave system situated in Castleton, Derbyshire on the fateful date of 22 March, 1959.
Moss joined a group of other spelunking (also known as cave exploring) enthusiasts from the British Speleological Association on an adventure through the underground.
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He was with seven other cavers, keen to venture through a dangerously narrow passage located within a chamber discovered just two weeks earlier, called Stalagmite Chamber.
A scary 300m (1,000ft) below the surface, Moss decided that he would head inside the chamber to make history, squeezing through the vertical shaft - though he is remembered for something more negative than this.
Six feet tall, he was a large, slim lad and though it was determined that the passage was 40 feet deep, and featured a corkscrew in the middle that would have been 'difficult' to get through.
Exact details couldn't be confirmed, but it's believed that the student tried to move a boulder out of the way, but instead obstructed the ropes and ladders that were put there by the group to get him back up.
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He ended up being too heavy for the team to pull him up, and the ropes simultaneously snapped.
A few of his fellow cavers, along with Moss himself, began to feel short of oxygen, as his body was jammed in the narrow passage, blocking the airflow through his respiratory system.
The atmosphere around Moss quickly became overwhelmed with carbon dioxide, and he became disorientated before losing consciousness completely.
Three other cavers passed out as they awaited the help of a rescue team, and when they showed up, some were small enough to fit through the tunnel to free Moss, but couldn't due to the 'foul air'.
Sadly, the Brit was declared dead on the morning of 24 March, 1959 by an RAF doctor as he never regained consciousness, though medics could not see his body.
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The entrance to the lower shaft of the cave was then sealed with loose rocks from the chamber, never to be accessed again.
An inscription in dedication to the late Moss was added nearby, and the section of Peak Cavern is now known as Moss Chamber instead of Stalagmite Chamber.
When Moss was in the chamber, he reportedly shouted to his cave exploring companions: "I say, I'm stuck, I can't budge an inch."
He tried to move his body into a position that would help him, but ended up getting into a position that made it even more difficult to pull him out of the corkscrew section of the passage, where he became 'sandwiched in an elliptical slit only eighteen inches wide'.