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‘It Felt Like I Was Being Pushed Out’: Bible Student Trapped in Cave for 20 Hours Credits God With His Rescue

Posted on May 24, 2012 at 6:57am by Mytheos Holt
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DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP/The Blaze) — An Illinois man who was trapped in an Iowa cave for 20 hours said he wasn’t initially worried when he got stuck the narrow passage, but he lost track of time and turned to prayer as a dozen rescuers took turns crawling through 300 feet of twists and turns to free him.

Logan Eliasen, 20, of Port Byron, Ill., said he had no idea how many people were involved in the rescue because he only had contact with two or three at once, but “they all knew my name.”

Logan Eliasen

He told The Quad-City Times (http://bit.ly/MnxbG2 ) that he was so grateful to the rescue workers who tugged at ropes and staffed oxygen lines during his 20-hour ordeal before he was finally freed Saturday afternoon.

Eliasen, a Bible and theology major at Wheaton College, near Chicago, and three friends went to Maquoketa Caves State Park on Friday to camp overnight and go caving. He and friend Emma Thompson, 20, also of Port Byron, Ill., decided to visit the Wye Cave about 7 p.m., while their friends stayed at the campsite to eat.

Eliasen and Thompson before being trapped

He led the way and worked through a narrow spot in the cave, although he caught his leg briefly in the passage. Thompson wasn’t so fortunate and found herself stuck. Fortunately, another couple was in the cave and found them.

“God must have put them there,” Eliasen said.

The couple tried to coach Thompson on how to get free, but nothing worked. The couple went for help.

Once rescuers arrived, they freed Thompson in about 30 minutes.

Then it was Eliasen’s turn.

He had made it through the same space earlier with little difficulty. But he was cold, hungry and tired. He got his chest hung up, and he briefly panicked and started hyperventilating. He waited for rescuers to coach him through it.

Freed from that, he worked his way through an angled part of the passage. He got hung up on his side, with one arm on a ledge. His leg and hip got stuck.

Rescuers were right there. One gave him a drink of water, and had to brush his hair from his face to get the bottle to his mouth.

“That was the most reassuring moment of the whole ordeal,” Eliasen said.

Rescuers chiseled away at the rock. They tried to tug him loose with ropes. He was alone occasionally for 10 to 20 minutes at a time when workers changed shifts.

It was during a shift change when he told himself he would try to free himself. He tried three times but couldn’t find the strength to push his body onto the ledge and free himself. He tried once more.

This time he got out – and according to him – this wasn’t just his own strength. It was God’s. The Daily Mail gives further coverage on the divine intervention-inspired events that may have given Eliasen the strength to make the final push:

[Eliasen] was alone occasionally for 10 to 20 minutes at a time while workers changed shifts.

During one of those shift changes, Mr Eliason managed to get himself free. He said it was God answering his prayers.

‘I prayed for the Lord to give me the last burst of strength,’ he said. ‘I pushed.’

He said everything went where it needed to go and ‘it felt like I was being shoved out of there’.[...]

‘People I know and people I’ll never know prayed for me,’ he said.

Given something to eat and water to drink, he worked his way with rescuers to the larger part of the cave where medical treatment began. Freed from the cave about 3 p.m. Saturday, he had scrapes on his body and suffered from dehydration and exhaustion.

Eliasen spent the night at Jackson County Regional Health Center.

Watch Thompson explain the horror of the situation in this video, courtesy of Quad-City Times:

Among the rescuers was Davenport firefighter Amy Priest. At 5-foot, 6-inches and 140 pounds, she was among only a few rescuers small enough to make physical contact with Eliasen.

“I just did what I could for him,” she told the Quad-City Times on Tuesday.

Priest had to ditch her harness to reach Eliasen. Wearing gloves and a helmet with a light, she found him pinned in a passage only a few feet wide. It took meandering around a 90-degree turn to get to him.

She then slid a pliable piece of plastic attached to a rope under him and a team of eight firefighters pulled. They were able to pull Eliasen just one foot, but it made all the difference.

After Priest was with Eliasen about an hour, she had to take a break because of the low oxygen in the cave. She said when she returned 15 minutes later, he had wiggled out and was sitting up in a larger space, eating a granola bar and guzzling a bottle of water.

“The expression on my face was priceless,” Priest said.

Back to The Blaze »

Comments (45)

The Burning Sword
Posted on May 25, 2012 at 8:26pm
Second Point
The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the only “God” who not only said “I Love You”
He (unlike the others) proved it. He Loved you so much that he was willing to be publicly humiliated,
tortured, and killed FOR YOU!! No other “god” even comes close to anything like this.
I know it may be hard to grasp why a “perfect” God would seemingly do imperfect things but the
truth is he doesn’t. We are the imperfect part. We live in a fallen world and we have our free will
(which is our second most precious gift after life) However it is our will that usually gets us in the biggest mess. Our ‘perfect” God absolutely wants to intervene on every occasion and rescue every one all the time but that would make us robots. There are countless times throughout history that he has intervened. Usually it is through a person that has traded their free will for his will. ex…Moses, Elijah, Jesus(“not my will but yours” Luke 22:42) There are many times where he hasn’t. Usually these are times and places where he is not welcome.
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kb101
Posted on May 25, 2012 at 11:52am
Either you believe or you don’t, you have faith or you don’t. I believe in Christ Jesus and I have faith in him as my Lord and Savior. If I am to be mocked and ridicluled because of this then so be it.
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jocko
Posted on May 24, 2012 at 6:49pm
To all the misguided, ignorant humanists, etc that revel in their prideful ego, believing they understand and know all.

I would rather believe and enjoy what you call my ‘illusionary’ relationship with Jesus and be wrong, than be like you. If I am wrong, and you are right, I have lost nothing.

But, what if I am right, and you are wrong? You have lost everything and I have gained eternity in heaven. You see, we Christians have experienced Jesus love which is why we continue to believe. But, until you accept Jesus, you will never be free or know the truth. Unlike mozlems and their god, allah/baal, which will behead you if you don’t believe, Jesus is waiting for you to open the door to Him.
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- Pontiac
  Posted on May 24, 2012 at 9:57pm
  [I would rather believe and enjoy what you call my ‘illusionary’ relationship with Jesus and be wrong, than be like you]
  Logical fallacy… Why don’t you practice all religions to increase your odds of being in every possible gods good graces? You’re already 99% atheist, why is that last 1% so difficult for you to overcome?
  Report Post »
- jocko
  Posted on May 25, 2012 at 11:51am
  @Pontiac… illogical assumption, incomplete understanding of my statement. I have experienced a relationship with Jesus that reinforces my belief. I have experienced cause and effect, making the relationship real. I have studied the Bible and have seen historical predictions that were made and came true with beyond astronomical probability. All other religions are but satanic perversions of God’s truths. But, you will never understand since you are limiting yourself to your fallacious ‘logic’ and the constraints of your intellect’s perceptions. God is far beyond the limits of our 4 perceived dimensions. Modern scientific string theory posits 12 dimensions as do the Jews based on the Bible.
  
  Until you recognize the limits of your own ego and intellect, you will remain in the dark, and not comprehend the Light.
  Report Post »
- Pontiac
  Posted on May 25, 2012 at 5:05pm
  [I have experienced a relationship with Jesus that reinforces my belief. ]
  No, you likely experienced an endorphin release and now you’re addicted to it… Everything you posted reinforces the fact that you’re in a delusional state of mind brought on by said endorphin addiction or possibly in a mentally impaired state from heavy substance abuse in the past. Either way you’re a fruit cake and the more you wrap yourself up in the bible the more easy it is for us to ostracize you from civilized society.
  Report Post »
DWilliams08
Posted on May 24, 2012 at 3:43pm
God must hate all of these guys:

http://www.sltrib.com/News/ci_13874869

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/derek-rose/stanford-grad-dies-in-cav_b_1536868.html

http://www.bgdailynews.com/news/local/florida-man-dies-on-cave-tour/article_47b7568e-9a26-11e1-8d49-0019bb2963f4.html

http://www.cavalierdaily.com/2009/12/01/medical-student-dies-in-cave/

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Eastern-Cape-worker-dies-in-cave-in-20120511

http://articles.cnn.com/2009-11-26/us/utah.cave.man_1_cave-entrance-trapped-rescuers?_s=PM:US
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- ConservativeCanucklehead
  Posted on May 24, 2012 at 4:12pm
  This is a point that is always lost on the religious. It is reasonable, logical, rational … and utterly lost on them. Delusional thinking is powerful indeed. We can only keep trying to dislodge the delusion and wake them from their slumber.
  Report Post »
Conservative Humanist
Posted on May 24, 2012 at 2:03pm
Why didn’t this all-powerful and all-knowing god prevent them from getting stuck in the first place? Does he set people up in these terrible situations just so he can rush in and praised for saving them. Not unlike the angel of mercy heath worker that gives a patient drugs to stop their heart, and gets praise when they rush in and save the patient, or the fireman that starts fires so he can be a hero?
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- Runeback
  Posted on May 24, 2012 at 2:40pm
  Why, as an amateur would you crawl into a part of the cave that you had to squeeze into? That would have been the point where I turn around. Doesn’t take godly intervention or being a genius to figure that out.
  Report Post »
- ConservativeCanucklehead
  Posted on May 24, 2012 at 4:15pm
  The religious will always resort to the old adages at these times … the lord works in mysterious ways … who can know the mind of God? And so on.
  Seems bloody capricious to me.
  Report Post »
lukerw
Posted on May 24, 2012 at 1:16pm
Good thing… he was not a Deist!
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rfycom
Posted on May 24, 2012 at 1:01pm
Jesus pushed the peoples from the cave. And he said, “get out”
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jocko
Posted on May 24, 2012 at 12:33pm
Hey, you get the trophy!!!

I am glad to see the Light has dawned for you – the Universe, without God, is a horrid place. In fact, you might even call it a Hell-ish place. That is one of the definitions of Hell, away from God.

Anything is possible through Jesus.
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vaman
Posted on May 24, 2012 at 12:19pm
What a joke of a story! Of course the bible student would thank god. Who else would he thank? He was saved because his friends went to get help. God did not come down on a cloud and pull him from the rocks. Rescue workers did. Another blaze Pulitzer Prize winning story.
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wvernon1981
Posted on May 24, 2012 at 11:42am
This attitude of thanking god for good things seems to presuppose that good things cannot happen on their own. This implies that the universe is a horrid place on it’s own.
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- jocko
  Posted on May 24, 2012 at 12:47pm
  Congratulations! You made the ultimate discovery because the universe, without God, is more than horrid – it is absolutely HELL-ish.
  
  In fact, that is one of the characteristics of Hell, the absence of God. So, be thankful that Jesus is here otherwise, no one would survive.
  Report Post »
- jocko
  Posted on May 24, 2012 at 5:10pm
  To all the misguided, ignorant humanists, etc that revel in their prideful ego, believing they understand and know all.
  
  I would rather believe and enjoy what you call my ‘illusionary’ relationship with Jesus and be wrong, than be like you. If I am wrong, and you are right, I have lost nothing.
  
  But, what if I am right, and you are wrong? You have lost everything and I have gained eternity in heaven. You see, we Christians have experienced Jesus love which is why we continue to believe. But, until you accept Jesus, you will never be free or know the truth. Unlike mozlems and their god, allah/baal, which will behead you if you don’t believe, Jesus is waiting for you to open the door to Him.
  Report Post »
BREWUP58
Posted on May 24, 2012 at 11:28am
Many years ago when I was a rookie skydiver I got into an uncontrollable spin. As some of you jumpers know being “Z”d out is a very scary thing. I tried desperately to get out of this spin and could not do it. I was getting too close to the ground so I had to pull . As I pulled the Ripcord my body just stopped spinning. It was as somebody straightened my body out. I feel to this day God and his angels were there with me.
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searching for the Truth
Posted on May 24, 2012 at 8:47am
Yes, God does these kind of things all the time for people – but, most people don’t give Him the praise for it.
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- Pontiac
  Posted on May 24, 2012 at 10:39am
  Yeah and all senseless deaths were because god was having a coffee break. If you want to credit him for saving someone, you should use the same logic and equally credit god for all the children tortured, raped, and killed around the world.
  Report Post »
- Haze
  Posted on May 24, 2012 at 11:08am
  Everyone blames God but forgets about satan. Funny at best
  Report Post »
- undercover
  Posted on May 24, 2012 at 11:11am
  No Pontiac – you give God credit for everything good and you give sin credit for everything evil – simple!
  Report Post »
- wvernon1981
  Posted on May 24, 2012 at 11:40am
  Undercover,
  
  So your god cares more about leaving people the free will to sin than preventing children from being scarred for the rest of their life? Your god is sick. We intervene in such matters all the time. Why can your god not do it?
  Report Post »
- Pontiac
  Posted on May 24, 2012 at 11:44am
  [you give God credit for everything good and you give sin credit for everything evil – simple!]
  How convenient for you. So when a tsunami or earthquake wipes your family out be sure to blame it on god…errr…I mean sin. Surely they did something wrong. Or maybe they were just in an area with a few sinful people and and it was gods ham handed way of dealing with a few bad eggs in that location. You know like flooding the earth, turning people into pillars of salt, killing Egyptian first borns, yadda yadda…
  ♫Damn it feels good to be an atheist.♫
  Report Post »
- CougarNick78
  Posted on May 24, 2012 at 11:54am
  Don’t mind Pontiac and Vernon, they’re two of your more bitter anti-Christ types. I bet they don’t have the guts to mock Islam….. Typical atheist punks.
  
  Yeah, good happens, it’s you. Bad happens, god da__it! Nice eb and flow stability you two have.
  Report Post »
- vaman
  Posted on May 24, 2012 at 12:26pm
  There is always an excuse. God should be thanked and given credit for all the good things, but satan and sin cover the bad. Nope. Your all powerful god takes the blame also. Can’t have it both ways, although it’s convenient to do so. On a related topic, ever notice you give god credit when .0000001% of all prayers are answered, but when the rest are not, there is always an excuse why the prayer wasn’t answered.
  Report Post »
- Pontiac
  Posted on May 24, 2012 at 12:28pm
  [I bet they don’t have the guts to mock Islam]
  Islam is a gutter religion. Christianity is trying its damnedest to close that gap. I don’t know what purpose it serves your ego to assume I wont treat Islam as utter garbage. Islam is just another branch on the same tree of sky daddy stupidity so I believe everything I said above still applies to them.
  Report Post »
- ConservativeCanucklehead
  Posted on May 24, 2012 at 4:27pm
  Unfortunately, we can never rely on the religious to be “logical” PONTIAC.
  In fact, the fluffy notion of faith is so elevated in their worldview that they expressly boast that faith is more virtuous than logic, more desirable than reason. It’s the bizzarro world where up is down and black is white. VERY dangerous.
  Report Post »
Steve28
Posted on May 24, 2012 at 8:39am
Lucky they were not cave diving as they would both be dead.
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momrules
Posted on May 24, 2012 at 8:38am
Haven’t any of you ever felt that? When you you have reached the end of trying to do it your way, the end of your emotional, mental and physical strength and have turned to God and been rescued.

These situations do not have to be like this young man in a cave but in so many of life’s trials.

God hears us, He is listening and He is always, always ready to answer.
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- jocko
  Posted on May 24, 2012 at 12:51pm
  Amen!
  Report Post »
AJAYW
Posted on May 24, 2012 at 8:27am
You can’t fix stupid
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searching for the Truth
Posted on May 24, 2012 at 8:26am
They may take an Hawaiian vacation.
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searching for the Truth
Posted on May 24, 2012 at 8:24am
I wouldn’t be giving them any ideals. They are, already, paid once.
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tommyr
Posted on May 24, 2012 at 7:52am
Where was Cory Booker?
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- bry
  Posted on May 24, 2012 at 8:49am
  LoL! Very funny!
  Report Post »
mccracken
Posted on May 24, 2012 at 7:22am
If Debbie Wasserman Schultz had a son, he would look like him.
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- biohazard23
  Posted on May 24, 2012 at 7:59am
  OMG, this kid is waaaaaaaay better looking than her!
  Report Post »
Baddoggy
Posted on May 24, 2012 at 7:19am
OK…so now God will repay the American Taxpayer for your stupidity? I know you won’t and someone has to pay for those people to rescued you…Hope they send you a bill for the time you wasted and the resources you spent. Stay out of caves unless you pay the taxpayer back!
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- JoeSchueller
  Posted on May 24, 2012 at 10:51am
  Exactly. I’m from the area where this happened, and I have to say that if God helped him out, he barely deserved it. This cave system is always closed due to safety concerns, so if any idiot goes in there and gets stuck, they should at least get the bill for the ambulance and the ridiculous amount of other rescuers that were there. Very frustrating. Glad he’s alive and OK, but he oughta get slapped upside the head once or twice if he hasn’t yet for his stupidity.
  Report Post »
NewLife56
Posted on May 24, 2012 at 7:13am
Great up lifting story. Praise God!
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- Vickie Dhaene
  Posted on May 24, 2012 at 11:30am
  Amen. I am a firm believer that bad things happen for good reasons. The Lord will teach us things in the most unusual ways.
  Report Post »
- ConservativeCanucklehead
  Posted on May 24, 2012 at 4:32pm
  VICKI … when you refer to the “unusual” ways God teaches us, I assume you mean vicious, hurtful, whimsical, and inconsistant.
  Report Post »
- Snidely
  Posted on May 25, 2012 at 12:18am
  Agreed, Newlife. This story sure did bring out a lot of haters, though. Don’t worry, haters, Jesus loves you, too. He won‘t make you spend eternity where you don’t want to be.
  Report Post »

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