When I walked into the office of the Dept. of Anthropology, I figured a couple of days worth of work; thats all it should take, so I thought. At the end of my interview, the woman asked, “When can you start?”
I could leave tomorrow if you like.”
She shot back, “Perfect!”
She added that it would be a 5-day commitment. I was a bit disappointed, I expected it to be only two to three days. But I really wanted to earn some extra cash for a flight back to Pennsylvania to visit family, so I figured why not I have time.
It seemed like it would be a fascinating experience to go with an archaeologist and his students on a “dig” as they call it. The professor and his students were from Northern Arizona University. The southwest is so rich in ancient artifacts, just hours from southern New Mexico where my adventure would begin. I left the next morning and drove the eight hours from Flagstaff to White Sands, NM.
The dig was in the White Sands Missile Range. Once each year scholars had authorization to explore parts of the range, but lasting for only two weeks, the professor and an associate professor of the department had a rather short window to excavate the area of their focus. Days earlier they’d discovered an 8000-year-old campsite with several bones embedded in the desert floor along with some pottery. It was imperative to complete the work before the military began their annual weapons testing lasting several months. This was a heavily restricted area with rare access and the professors had only five days to uncover the site.
On our first day, and under close supervision, we put up a large tarp overhead to protect us from the extreme heat. At noon, the temperature gauge measured 105°. The tarp blocked the hot sun, unfortunately it did little to cool us down. After an entire morning of orientation and detailed instructions we knew what we could and could not do concerning the care and preservation of the artifacts; including how to properly dig.
As we began work, I became aware that one of the students was right behind me videotaping our progress. My assignment was to help a more experienced student dig out delicate pieces of human bones; he also acted as my tutor. These bones were partially exposed, the largest piece measuring no more than 10cm or roughly 4in. Working opposite sides of one another, we painstakingly brushed and dug to uncover the ancient human remains, taking great care not to damage the item, such as scratching, nicking or God forbid, breaking them more. Ever so slowly, we stroked away chalky white limestone, sand and small pebbles from the surfaces of the artifacts.
I could still feel the heat from the desert floor pushing up hot air around my body, it was intense, like sitting in an oven. Without warning, I felt an uncomfortably odd sensation. The sandy, chalky ground I was kneeling on felt like it was sinking. I watched as if in slow motion the piece of bone that we were working on seemed to be rising.
This was all happening so fast, I suddenly heard the kid behind me who was filming let out a loud, “Whoa!” My brain could not register fast enough what was taking place or why. But I knew the ground was surely sinking.
I thought, “My god what’s going on, is this for real?” In that very moment I felt the ground below me give away completely. At the same time, I instinctively kicked my feet forward and pushed my torso backwards as I stretched my arms out to my sides grasping for solid ground, all in a split second. I managed to jam my feet into the hard ground in front of me, thereby holding me above this gaping hole. Behind me, my back was pushing against something other than the ground that I expected when I heard a panicked voice, “Oh god, it hurts, I can’t breathe!” The videographer who was once standing behind me now found his body wedged between my backside and the solid ground behind him, while at the same time feeling the pressure of my body as I pushed against him with all my strength.
I was too scared to speak, but my brain screamed, “Jesus, god what do I do!
Using peripheral vision, I could see nothing but blackness as I peered down at my sides, then I began to panic. When I finally found my voice I quickly looked up and screamed, “Get help!” It felt as though time stopped… Like mad I prayed for the solid ground to hold around the hole, “God I don’t wanna die, please.”
I really thought this could be it, I became aware that after the ground had given way, I perceived nothing but silence below me, not a sound, no thud or even an echo, the ground that dropped beneath me had not yet hit bottom. “Dear god, is there such a thing as a bottomless pit?” The thoughts going through my mind came in split seconds I couldn’t keep track of them, but for sure none of them good. I stopped letting my imagination take me over and focused on my feet.
I was vaguely aware of the others around us, they sounded quite panicked and confused; their screams and shouts filled the air, yet I couldn’t understand what they were saying. A strange effect that I perceived was that my hearing sounded quite muffled, had to be the extreme stress I was under. My thoughts went to the student that I was squeezing behind me and making it so hard for him to breathe. Obviously, he was in a lot of distress, but he must have understood that my actions were all that was keeping us from falling, but there was nothing else I could do.
Then I heard a clear voice holler out, “where’s the goddamn rope!” As my hearing seemed to return, it was now very acute. I struggled to see where the voice came from, I noticed a large imposing figure in front of me to the right about ten feet away, it was the professor. He was frantically kicking pails and tools out of his way including a piece of plastic tarp, when it shifted something round caught my eye. It was a large red spindle with nylon rope wound around it. I hollered back, “I see it, it's under the tarp, its there! At that moment, I felt the ground that I was pushing against with my hiking boots beginning to crumble slightly. I began to wonder in my mind, what’s gonna give way first, my legs or the ground underneath my boots.
As I push with all my might to keep us from falling, I could feel my back and legs begin to tire from holding both of us in place. I was jolted out of these thoughts by the sensation of nylon rope landing on top of my thighs and crotch and hearing instructions from the professor, “Tie the rope around both of you at the waist, make it as tight as you can stand it.”
“Double knot it!”
If there is anything close to a positive aspect to all this, both of our arms were free. Suddenly more ground broke away under my feet to the point that my legs were now—fully extended, I was at the point of pushing out with my toes, whereas before, my knees had a slight bend, allowing me to apply more pressure. In that instant I lost what extra leverage I had; however, I still managed to hold the both of us in place. I tried to get the rope around the other guy through a whipping motion behind his body, praying he could grasp it.
It was no use; I could feel with my hand that his body was up tight against the wall of the hole, with his legs dangling down. Not the least bit of space left for me to thread the rope behind his back. No one dared come closer to the hole than maybe six ft. to help us. We were on our own. This twenty something videographer is having the air squeezed from his lungs and is now gasping for breath. I began to sense the futility of my efforts to save us, he could barely breathe, and I was getting weaker—- the voice in my head screamed ‘what now, what do I do!
A thought popped in my mind, I could save myself and tie the rope around my own waist, if I can manage in time, but... how could I be so selfish as to think such a thing. I directed my gaze at the people in front of me, now standing motionless.
As I scanned their faces, some expressed a sad resignation, others just a horrified look. My attention quickly snapped back to my boots; I watched as the pressure I exerted to keep us from falling gradually crushed the tan and chalky white rock. Chunk by chunk the ground began falling away, dropping into the darkness beneath us. All at once I had a sensation of floating, no more fight, no more struggle.
Then…
I woke up in my bed as the morning sunlight poured into my bedroom. I heard my lovely, better half jokingly shout out, “hey sleepy head, you roped me into making you a hot breakfast, get down here before it gets cold and goes to waste!
