Summarize and humanize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in EnglishIt’s a scenario worthy of a nightmare.Trapped in a ‘corkscrew’ shaft deep underground and with no hope of escape and slowly becoming delirious from inhaling your own exhaled carbon dioxide.At around 4pm on March 22, 1959, this is what happened to 20-year-old Oxford University student Neil Moss.Entranced by the chance to explore a newly-discovered crevice inside Peak Cavern, a famous cave outside Castleton, Derbyshire, he had been with seven fellow ‘potholers’ when he got stuck.He went feet first inside the 18inch-wide shaft – which was around 40feet deep – and quickly became jammed by the shoulders. The efforts to rescue him involved hundreds of fellow amateur cavers and members of the Royal Navy and RAF.But none of them could save Moss from his terrible fate. He was declared dead late on March 24 and his ‘tomb’ was sealed up forever. Rescuers at Peak Cavern in Castleton, Derbyshire, during the operation to free trapped caver Neil Moss, March 1959
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Oscar Hackett Neil Moss was the son of a cotton industry executive.A member of the British Speleological Association, he was very much an amateur caver. His mother, speaking from her home in Cheshire after he got stuck, admitted her son ‘cannot be called greatly experienced’. Neil Moss, who died inside an 18 inch-wide shaft in 1959The main entrance to Peak Cavern was just 200 yards from Castleton’s high street. But the crevice that Moss was stuck in lay nearly a mile beyond the point that the public could tour. The Mail’s original reporting told how an oxygen mask was lowered to him at midnight on March 22 as squads of ‘potholers’ brought from Sheffield, Manchester, Derby and Nottingham worked in the bitter cold to try to reach him.The rescuers were able to get a rope around him but it snapped when they tried to haul him up. Moss, the Mail said at the time, was ‘wedged so tightly’ that he could not lift his arms.He became too weak to eat the food that was passed to him, or to put the oxygen mask on. Mud-covered rescuers John Needham and Geoffrey Sutton at Peak Cavern in Castleton, Derbyshire Flight Lieutenant John Carter (right) and a tearful fellow rescuer seen after spending hours trying to free Neil Moss A policeman tends to rescue worker Michael Walker during the operation to free Neil Moss Geoffrey Sutton, potholer, who attempted to rescue trapped potholer Neil Moss Caving veteran and inventor Bob Leakey seen at Peak Cavern during the rescue operation June Bailey, potholer, at Peak Cavern in Castleton, Derbyshire Ronald Peters, an expert potholer, who received the George Medal for gallantry, for his attempts to rescue trapped potholer Neil MossAt 1.15 am on March 23, a worried rescue worker said: ‘He is still talking, but his speech is slurred.’ The Daily Mail’s coverage on March 23By the following day – around 36 hours after he became trapped – hope that Moss would be pulled alive had faded. The young caver had lost consciousness more than once. A doctor on the scene who had spent nine hours trying to rescue him said: ‘Only a miracle can save him now. His breathing is going fainter and fainter. ‘By then, teams from the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force had joined the rescue efforts, which were being hampered by the shaft’s corkscrew shape.One rescuer explained: ‘Moss is stuck in a sort of hollow corkscrew. The only way to free him will be to revolve his body in the whole… to unscrew him.’The situation was made more difficult by the fact that Moss, at 6ft 3in, was a big man.Derby man Ron Peters was able to get to Moss, but could not free him. He said at the time: ‘I just managed to put my teeth on Moss’s back. That was about as far as I could get.’There was a rope around him, but it had broken. I tied a new rope to what remained of the old lifeline and we managed to raise him about 18in on that pull.’ But Peters endangered himself in trying to get Moss out. He ended up suffering from exhaustion and carbon dioxide poisoning.Another rescuer, 18-year-old Roy Fryer, said: ‘The air is very bad indeed, full of carbon dioxide, and I soon got a splitting headache. The front page of the Daily Mail on March 24, 1959, when Neil Moss had been trapped for more than 24 hours The second page of the Mail’s coverage on March 24, 1959 The Mail’s coverage on March 25, after Moss had been declared dead’The people in charge warned us we would only be able to stay in that area for about ten minutes.’I went on breathing oxygen but had to give up. I suppose I got to within about 10ft of the trapped man. We could hear him then breathing quite distinctly.’ After more than 12 hours of rescue efforts, the volunteers felt they were no closer to freeing Moss.Techniques they had tried included chipping away at the rock with crowbars and hammers in the hope of widening the shaft, and digging a new tunnel to get underneath Moss.Moss’s fate was sealed at the end of the second day of rescue efforts, when the order came to withdraw because heavy rain was threatening to flood the main cavern.When the rain eased off, rescuers returned to the head of the corkscrew shaft but could no longer hear Moss breathing.The inquest into his death stated his time of death as being 3am on Tuesday, March 24. Moss’s father Eric, who had kept vigil by the main tunnel entrance throughout the ordeal, insisted that his son’s body stay where it was, to avoid anyone else dying.The entrance to the shaft was covered by loose rocks. For his selfless efforts to save Moss, Ron Peters was awarded the George Medal. Fellow rescuers Les Salmon, John Thompson and Flight Lieutenant John Carter received the British Empire Medal. Moss’s tragic story was re-told in 2004 novel One Last Breath and in 2006 documentary Fight for Life: The Neil Moss Story.
