How an English adventurer saved himself from a cave in Montenegro: The pages of a book like bread crumbs

For most people, the idea of ​​going into an isolated cave alone would fill them with dread, but for ex-teacher Tommy Soames, it was his way of entertaining himself - until he got lost inside and thought he was going to die alone, with no hope of being saved

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Obod cave, Photo: Shutterstock
Obod cave, Photo: Shutterstock
Disclaimer: The translations are mostly done through AI translator and might not be 100% accurate.

The Englishman Tommy Soames got lost last spring in the Obod Cave in Montenegro, and his life was saved by the book he had with him at the time. He told his story to the Daily Mail.

For most people, the idea of ​​going into an isolated cave alone would fill them with dread, but for ex-teacher Tommy Soames, it was his way of entertaining himself - until he got lost inside and thought he was going to die alone, with no hope of being saved, writes the British Daily Mail.

This is exactly what happened when he went to explore the underground network of caves near Skadar Lake last year.

He survived the six-hour ordeal by tearing out pages from the book "SAS Great Escapes" by historian Damien Lewis and using them, Ivica and Marica style, to mark each dead end until he found a way out.

Lewis later received an email from this adventurer in which Soames told him: "Your book saved my life."

They met last Sunday at the launch of the author's latest book, "SAS Great Escapes II", in Churchill's War Rooms in Westminster.

Lewis was so inspired by the story of this survival that he recounted it in the foreword of his latest volume of the book.

Somsa, who went to Montenegro last spring, was first told by a fisherman about Obodska Pećina, near Rijeka Crnojevića.

The cave was located among a stunning forest.

The only things he carried in his bag were Louis's book, a tin of sardines and a pack of dates.

"There was one huge entrance. So I thought, one way is down, one way is up. So I went in," Soames said, according to the Daily Mail.

"And I didn't think the river would be that far. So I just listened to the water and I heard it gently rushing in the distance. I think that's why I got lost so quickly, because all I was listening to was the water and I wasn't really looking where I was going, just I followed my senses," Soames said.

He said that very quickly it became "pitch dark".

The only other sound besides the rushing water was the screeching of bats.

When he reached the river at the bottom, after about an hour of walking, he filled a water bottle and tried to get out.

"I followed one way back, (it was) a dead end. I thought, OK, that's fine. Apparently there are two tunnels, not one. So I went back down again, I went into another tunnel. And that's also was a dead end. And after the second tunnel I thought it was over. I was so sure at that point that I was going to die," Soames said.

As he tried to descend back to the river, Soames took a wrong step and fell between two rocks. Luckily, he only suffered cuts and bruises, but said the fall "soofed" him out of panic.

When he returned to the river, he examined the contents of his bag and began to think about the fairy tales he knew.

His mind wandered to Theseus and the Minotaur, where the hero escapes the monster's maze using Ariadne's ball of thread to guide him.

He also thought of Ivica and Marica in the classic Grimm's fairy tale, how the twins run away from the forest and from the clutches of the witch, leaving a trail of bread crumbs. At first he tried to make a trail with the dates he had, but realized that their muddy brown appearance blended in with the stones.

"And then I saw the book and I started tearing it up. I thought I wouldn't make it. But I have to try because no one will come to find me. I thought about my parents, my brothers and sisters, imagining the police knocking on their doors and saying them, you know, probably weeks later that my body was found. And that's what kept me going," Soames said.

Interestingly, he tore out every page of the book - which chronicled the escapades of the elite SAS (British Army's Special Air Service) in the Second World War - as he read it, up to chapter six.

"It's not just the fact that I had the book with me, it's that I had this book, because these guys were calm under pressure and thought so logically about their plan," he said.

He became so disoriented as he tried to get out over the next five hours that when he finally saw a shaft of sunlight marking the exit, he thought he was looking at a "snowdrift" and almost turned back.

"Then I saw the exit and I broke down on my knees and cried for who knows how long," Soames said.

Soames now carries the damaged book on all his travels.

A day later, he returned to the UK and headed to see hit band The Killers perform, which he said was "a bit traumatic" as they turned off the lights during one song, forcing him to relive his cave.

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