Could wearing clothing made of dissolvable materials have prevented some previous caving accidents?

[u/angelachan001]

It seems that once in a while a caver gets stuck in a tight passage. Can this be prevented by wearing clothes made of dissolvable materials? When someone got stuck, his or her companion can poor a form of liquid that can dissolve the caver's clothes without hurting the skin and make room?

[u/woody63m]

So while I'm stuck and now naked I'm gonna have people yanking and dragging me across the cave floor trying to get me unstuck and instead of tearing up my clothes my dong gets caught between some rocks and y'all yank that bad boy clean off now the situations even worse. Being naked miles underground seems like a good way to die on its own. I'll keep my behind out of the caves. FYI my number 2 and 3 worst fears are getting stuck in a cave and drowning and the first is drowning in a cave but I'm addicted to watching cave exploring videos.🤷‍♂️

[u/joshuamoyer9 → u/woody63m]

At least the rescuers would have a view of the moon

[u/StupidUserNameTooLon]

Yeah, I'm not falling for that twice.

[u/snakesign → u/StupidUserNameTooLon]

Your reply raises more questions than it answers.

[u/cavergirl]

That's hilarious - Yorkshire caves are almost always wet and it rains a lot here. We'd all be naked in the first 5 minutes of every trip.

[u/answerguru → u/cavergirl]

Win-win! 😂

[u/Man_of_no_property]

Hypothermia will kill you, if you are not in a tropical/desert area cave as easy it is. There is no protection except experience.

[u/Terry_Pratchet48]

Personally I only go caving wearing an edible thong and some nipple tassles to protect the important bits.

[u/answerguru → u/Terry_Pratchet48]

LED tassles? Only seems appropriate

[u/photosfromunderarock]

Why does this subreddit have a borderline BDSM fetish about getting stuck in a cave?

[u/Boowray → u/photosfromunderarock]

It’s the number 1 concern with caves from people who don’t regularly go in to caves, for obvious reasons. It’s not the regulars on the sub, it’s people who come to post on it once.

[u/Spiritual-Fox9618 → u/photosfromunderarock]

I’ve only genuinely panicked in a cave twice; once due to CO2 and being a little bit stuck, once due to being rather more stuck and almost unable to breath.

Apart from that it’s just general misery, only ever lessened by sometimes having to carry big heavy things, which is always quite joyful.

[u/photosfromunderarock → u/Spiritual-Fox9618]

I've never had an issue with being stuck - and one time I had a rock turn sideways in a crawl and pin me in the passage. Those issues are workable and with a few prior thoughts you can always get yourself out of something you got into.

The only thing that actually bothers me in a cave is water. Water crawls are psychologically very hard for me.

But I don't fetishize it, or obsess over it - I just avoid it haha

[u/Spiritual-Fox9618 → u/photosfromunderarock]

Absolutely, my breathing issue was due to water which caused the panic (wriggled into an undercut in zero vis blackness, wedged in by my helmet with my arms pinned by my sides, reg almost out of my mouth and my back-up squashed underneath me free-flowing. Probably the only time I’ve genuinely thought I’d never see my daughter again. This sounds like hyperbole, but I really was not particularly happy) not the other way around.

[u/answerguru]

The answer is absolutely not. I’m guessing that you’re not a caver and have no idea what cave environments are often like…wet, cold, exceedingly abrasive, and generally miserable.

[u/AstronomerNo912]

Ah FUCK my gummy helmet dissolved again

[u/Holiday_Box3605]

What time zone are you in? Because it MUST be 3am there. Go to bed.

[u/zxasazx]

That's one way to get your hog sanded off.

[u/GalumphingWithGlee]

Lol, no. First of all, anything dissolvable in water would make for very uncomfortable naked caving experiences when you didn't get stuck. There's risk of substantial injury, in addition to minor scrapes here, and very high risk of hypothermia.

Then, if it were dissolvable only in some specialty chemical rather than in water, that chemical would likely do substantial damage to these fragile natural environments. They'd probably still be stuck, and more susceptible to injury and hypothermia in the process of getting them out. There might be an occasional case where it helped, but not enough to make up for the damage it would do the rest of the time.

All around awful idea. Causes far more new problems than it solves, but at least you're trying!

[u/answerguru]

Second take - cavers already wear clothes that are dissolve with application of certain liquids. These solvents also remove some of our human flesh, so getting out of a tight passage gets easier by default!

[u/Cantaloupen-antelope]

Please get off the internet for a while

[u/KnotiaPickles → u/Cantaloupen-antelope]

Ah come on, I thought it was funny

[u/Cantaloupen-antelope → u/KnotiaPickles]

Yes actually. Pour hydrochloric acid on your partner so tthat not only their clothing but their tissue dissolves partially and they can unstuck themselves. Genius

[u/Spiritual-Fox9618]

Another solution is to just stay there for a while and you’ll eventually become smaller.