{"id":244332,"date":"2026-05-26T20:24:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T20:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/244332\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T20:24:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T20:24:13","slug":"nyc-man-really-jammed-inside-frigid-upstate-cave-rescued-after-six-hours-dec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/244332\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC man ‘really jammed’ inside frigid upstate cave rescued after six hours: DEC"},"content":{"rendered":"

He was between a rock and a hard place. <\/p>\n

A Brooklyn man exploring an upstate New York cave with his pals ended up so firmly jammed in a crevice that it took six hours in the dark and cold to get him freed \u2014 thanks to heroic state park rangers.<\/p>\n

Rangers got word of the harrowing situation inside Merlin\u2019s Cave in the town of Canaan around 6:30 p.m. on May 17, state Department of Environmental Conservation officials<\/a> said on Facebook last Friday.<\/p>\n

An unidentified Brooklyn man was stuck in an upstate cave for six hours on May 17. NYS Department of Environmental Conservation<\/p>\n

State DEC rangers needed a rock drill to free a Brooklyn man from an upstate cave. Greg Moore \/ Albany-Schoharie Cave Rescue Team<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until 9 p.m. that a rescue team was able to get to the site, and what they found was frightening \u2014 by then, the temperature dropped to 50 degrees with 100% humidity, DEC Forest Ranger Lt. John Gullen said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s still three of his buddies, who were still with him and they\u2019re trying to get him out,\u201d Gullen said. \u201cAt this point, they\u2019ve been in the cave for many hours, so they are all hypothermic.\u201d<\/p>\n

It took the ranger 20 minutes to crawl 400 feet in the cramped cave to get to the trapped man, who was not identified other than as a Brooklyn resident in a report by The Independent<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was really jammed in there, more than I had expected,\u201d Gullen said. \u201cIt\u2019s like his full body was stuck in a crevice that was basically designed the exact shape of him.\u201d<\/p>\n

DEC Forest Ranger Lt. John Gullen said it was 50 degrees in the cave when rescuers arrived. NYS Department of Environmental Conservation<\/p>\n

The trapped man, who was not identified, managed to stay positive throughout the ordeal. NYS Department of Environmental Conservation<\/p>\n

When the crew couldn\u2019t budge the man, the ranger stayed with him while other rescuers left to retrieve a rock drill \u2014 telling jokes to keep the man from panicking over the ordeal 140 miles from his home.<\/p>\n

Once armed with the drill, Gullen said it took less than a half-hour to free the man, who was not injured.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we were ere able to get to a point where we could high-five, we were high-fiving,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a feeling that I wish everyone could experience, \u2019cause there\u2019s nothing like it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He was between a rock and a hard place. A Brooklyn man exploring an upstate New York cave…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244333,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[98,29796,57,9,56,63,65,64,27689,9821,58],"class_list":["post-244332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-brooklyn","tag-hiking","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-rescues","tag-upstate","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}