American rescued from Turkish cave on the waiting period: ‘You kind of just survive’

Mark Dickey, an American researcher who was rescued after being trapped in a Turkish cave, described in an interview Thursday how he survived the ordeal.

“There’s not that much that you tell yourself. You kind of just survive,” Dickey told Michael Strahan during an appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Dickey was left in the cave after his fiancee, Jessica Van Ord, left his side to find medical help.

“I’ve got a pretty significant medical background for emergencies,” Dickey added. “And it was really just making sure that everyone that was with me, took care of me and, you know, watching out for decreased pulse, decreased blood volume, transition into a shock position if I needed to and like kind of prolong everything as long as I could.”

Dickey said he started to believe he’d make it out alive when his fiancee returned to the cave with medical supplies, and noted how other cavers on site also helped out with his eventual rescue. 

“The moment the full rescue got there, this was … I knew I would get to the surface,” Dickey said. 

“But uh, it was fast, it was really fast. Once we started moving it, it happened a lot faster than I expected. So I was — man, I was happy to get to the surface and see those stars and smell the fresh air, and that was a good moment.” 

Dickey was trapped in the Morca Cave for 10 days before Turkish authorities rescued him. Dickey, 40, began to experience stomach bleeding and was too frail to climb out of the cave himself.

The Speleological Federation of Turkey said in a post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, that Dickey was extracted from the cave early Monday morning. They called the operation a successful one. Rescue crews across Europe helped out in the rescue mission.