Man rescued alive after 15 days trapped in pitch-black underwater cave

A fisherman was saved after spending nearly half a month in a underwater sinkhole.

Erasto Crisanto Valdez disappeared for 15 days in a cenote in San Fransisco La Paz, a small rural community in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca.

Mr Valdez, 31, had joined his father on a fishing expedition on July 23 before he suddenly vanished.

He was finally discovered dehydrated and with severe malnutrition in a cave more than 300 ft deep on August 7.

He described his rescue as a ‘marvellous miracle’.

‘Thank you God for giving me another opportunity in life and allowing me to see my children and my family’, he told Nmas.

Mr Valdez explained that he got stuck in the pitch black cave while attempting to catch a robalo, a common snook.

He said that he drank, slept and prayed in the total darkness and completely lost his sense of time given the complete absence of daylight.

Explorers from Mexico, Germany, the US and the Dominican Republic joined the search, which took place under challenging conditions including poor visibility.

Among those involved was American cave-diving instructor Harry Gust, who believed he was on a mission to recover a body.

The diver, based in Tulum, luckily found a spare air tank some 100 metres inside the cave, after 75 minutes searching underwater.

He was forced to abandon his search and return the following day, when he found a ‘large dry cave’ with a small river flowing out of it where Mr Valdez was trapped.

‘I could not see him but assured him that I was coming back for him with more help’, he told Divernet.

Thousands of underwater cenotes exist on Mexico’s Yucatán peninsular, which were historically used by Mayan communities for water and sacrificial offerings.

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