An Ivybridge doctor was part of a team involved in one of the country’s longest cave rescue operations.

Dr Craig Holstock is usually to be found working as a consultant cardiothoracic anaesthetist at Derriford Hospital in Plymouth but also volunteers for Devon Cave Rescue Organisation.

They were called out to help rescue an injured caver at Ogof Ffynnon Dud in the Breacon Beacons of Wales.

The operation took 55 hours and a team of around 300 rescuers who like Dr Holstock came from all over the country.

Dr Holstock said: “around 10am on the Saturday morning the cave diver was standing on a boulder that gave way. The rescue teams from South and Mid Wales were called and in the evening I was asked if I would go on standby.”

“I received a call at 3am on Sunday morning and set off for Wales arriving around 8am.”

“I was asked to provide medical support and headed into the cave through the ‘Condor’ entrance reaching the casualty at 11am. The casualty was very slowly stretchered out and carried through very challenging terrain which involved ups, downs, gaps and drops. We had to go the long way round to what is known as the ‘top entrance ‘as the ‘Condor’ entrance is too narrow for the stretcher. I was there until I was relieved by another doctor at about 7pm. I returned at 3pm on Monday afternoon and we had to go through a challenging area called the ‘corkscrew’. Eventually we emerged with the casualty at 8pm on Monday night.” “I knew him personally through my caving and he was taken to hospital where he is doing reasonably well but had serious, though not immediately life-threatening, injuries.”

The Devon Cave Rescue Organisation is a volunteer search and rescue charity comprised of local cavers who assist those who are lost or injured in the counties’ caves and mines. It is around 40-strong with it’s vehicles in Torquay and its equipment kept at Buckfastleigh.