I was trapped in a cave for 54 hours but made it my mission to get back underground

A man trapped for 54 hours in the UK's longest cave rescue said it was his mission to "get back underground" as soon as possible.

George Linnane from Bristol was exploring deep in the Ogof Ffynnon Ddu cave system in Bannau Brycheiniog National Park - also known as the Brecon Beacons - with friends when he fell, breaking a leg, his jaw and three ribs.

"I always wanted to get back underground. I kind of made it my mission. I decided this very early on whilst I was still in the hospital," said the 43-year-old.

After nine months of recovery and slowly building up his physical fitness, Linnane was able to return to his adventurous hobby, even revisiting the cave where he fell in November 2021.

Describing being trapped underground, he said: "I was in survival mode. At points during that I thought I might not make it.

"One second I was caving, the next minute, the world went mad."

Linnane said he felt "lucky to be alive" and "very lucky" to still have his right leg but was always eager to return to caving, despite injuries sustained from his fall.

"When people think of caving, they think of small passages and crawling and misery," he said.

"And that's really not what it's about. We do that stuff. But we do it to get to the good stuff, pretty amazing things that 99.9% of the population will never see.

"It's another world down there. It's like being on the moon or another planet."

Linnane said the excursion was meant to be a five or six-hour "easy" trip.

But at some point, deep in the complex of 61km (38 miles) of twists and turns, he suddenly felt his "legs whirling around in mid-air, arms grabbing for something" before things went blank.

When he came round, he said it was obvious the bottom half of his leg was broken and some of his teeth were missing.

Much of his body felt uncomfortable but he was not fully aware of the seriousness of his injuries.

He also sustained three broken ribs, a dislocated clavicle with his collarbone pulling away from his ribcage, a lacerated spleen, a collapsed lung and a broken scaphoid in his wrist.

Ten separate teams from around the UK banded together to get Linnane to safety, with 250 volunteers underground and more than 50 on the surface to support the rescue.

"There was a lot going on," Linnane said.

"I think some people were underground for 12 hours at a time. I've been underground for that length of time and more myself and it's quite a long time to be underground."

While the rescue was under way, Linnane asked for messages to be sent on his behalf.

"My car was meant to be going in for a MOT so I wanted a message to be sent to the MOT guy saying 'don't take my car because my partner is going to be needing that'," he said.

"I did also try to send out an 'I love you' to my partner as well."

Asked what it felt like when he reached the surface, he told the BBC World Service: "It felt like Wales. It was wet and windy.

"Emotionally I was really pleased to get out of there."

Despite knowing he wanted to return underground following his rescue and recovery, Linnane needed to learn to eat and walk again first.

He said at the beginning of his recovery his progress was "very, very slow".

"You can't just look at the end because it seems very far away and kind of unobtainable, like it's never going to come," he said.

"I just wanted to be able to eat my Christmas dinner with my teeth rather than sticking it in a blender.

"It took four weeks of literally training my jaw to chew."

Linnane began learning to walk again, starting by trying to reach the end of his driveway and back, before heading just a few hundred metres up the road.

After just over four months, Linnane was able to get into a swimming pool, slowly building up his fitness.

Six months after the accident, he was able to return to scuba diving, a hobby that led him to discover his love of caving.

"Nine months later I went back underground for the first time and I just kind of took it from there," he said.

"It's what I do and what makes me happy. And I know that whilst something bad did happen to me, the chances of it happening again is very, very low."

Linnane said he also wanted to get "strong enough" to be able to join South and Mid Wales Cave Rescue Team, which co-ordinated the rescue operation that returned him to safety.

"I wanted to be able to help the next poor soul this happens to," he said.

"Caving is a very safe sport, generally speaking, for people that know what they're doing.

"It's as safe as crossing a road. But things do happen occasionally. And when they do, there is only one team of people, one type of person that is going to get you out of there.

"The fire service can't do it, mountain rescue can't do it. The only people that can do it is other cavers, because they're the only people with the skill set to do it.

"Cavers rescue cavers."