Josh Bratchley

Josh Bratchley was found at the ‘airbell’ section of the underwater cave in Tennessee hours after he lost contact with his fellow divers.

A British diver who helped save 12 boys in a Thai cave has been rescued from a flooded cave in the US, authorities said.

Chattanooga Hamilton County Rescue Service, whose experts had been assisting with the operation, said on Facebook: “The diver was located and brought out of the cave by rescue divers! All are safe on the surface.

Bratchley is said to be good health and good spirits, according to Bill Whitehouse, vice chairman of the British Cave Rescue Council, reported ABC News.

The water was said to be a cold 12 degrees.

Hamilton County Rescue Squad Lt. Brian Krebs said there is an ‘airbell’ in the cave system that was large enough for a diver to climb into and it held sufficient air for the diver to surviver for a period of time more than 24 hours.

Josh Bratchley was a member of the elite international team that helped save the young footballers and their coach last July.

Yesterday a 911 call was made at 1.17am that a man who’d been diving at the Mill Pond Cave, Tennessee, had disappeared, Jackson County Emergency Management Agency said.

A search and rescue operation involving emergency services and expert divers from the US was under way after his group raised the alarm in the early hours of Wednesday morning local time.

Mr Whitehouse earlier told the Press Association: “There’s a British cave diver who is overdue on a dive in a cave in Tennessee, a place called Mill Pond Cave, Flynn Creek, in Gainsboro.

“He went in on Tuesday on, I understand, a dive to replace a guideline in the flooded section of the cave and he didn’t return from that mission.

Hero Thailand cave diver who helped rescue schoolboys says zero-visibility conditions ‘couldn’t get any worse’
“A couple of others there went in to look for him and weren’t able to find him. When they weren’t able to find him, they came out and they raised the alarm.”

Expert divers from Arkansas and Florida are understood to have travelled to the site to assist in the rescue mission.
They were thought to be preparing to enter the cave at around 6pm local time (midnight Wednesday).

“Cave diving is not something to be undertaken lightly, so they would need to feel fit and able,” Mr Whitehouse said.

The group of experienced divers had been staying in the area for the last two or three days, said Ethan Burris, a public information officer for the Jackson County Emergency Management Agency.

“There had been previous mapping of the cave by Tennessee Tech University and there (were) some air pockets that had been identified, I believe, previously that the diver was aware of so it’s a very good possibility that he would seek that out once he found himself in distress,” Jackson County EMA Public Information Officer Derek Woolbright said during a news conference Wednesday.

“This individual is known to be very experienced in this kind of thing.”

Derek Woolbright, of the Jackson County Emergency Management team, said after the 911 call one of their members had not returned from a cave dive.

Woolbright said the team of experienced cave divers went in around 3pm yesterday and did not realise one of them was missing until they came out.

They went back to try to find him, but could not.

That’s why they delayed calling for help. The entrance to the cave is underwater.

“My mind is blown,” Woolbright said. “I’ve lived here and worked here [and] didn’t know this existed, but we’ve gotten information from other divers.”

It is not his first visit to the site.

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