Spanish extreme athlete emerges into daylight after 500 days living in cave

Beatriz Flamini, an elite sportswoman, mountaineer and climber, is said by her support team to have broken a world record for the longest time spent in a cave. She was 48 when she went into the cave, and celebrated two birthdays alone underground.

The team told Reuters she was out of the cave 8 days due to technical reasons, but remained isolated in a tent.

She began her challenge on Saturday, Nov 20, 2021 - before the outbreak of the Ukraine war, the resultant cost of living crisis, the end of Spain's lengthy COVID mask requirement and the death of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II.

Media coverage of her emergence into the light of spring in southern Spain on Friday (April 14) was limited so as not to overwhelm her, but regional TV showed her wearing dark glasses and climbing out towards her support team grinning. Wearing masks, they encircled her in a hug.

"I love you so much, I’m really grateful, and please disregard anything I have said down there.”

Flamini spent her time underground doing exercises to keep her fit and busy, painting and drawing and knitting wooly hats. She took two GoPro cameras to document her time, and got through 60 books and 1,000 liters of water, according to her support team.

Flamini was monitored by a group of psychologists, researchers, speleologists - specialists in the study of caves - and physical trainers who watched her every move and monitored her physical and mental wellbeing, though never made contact.

According to Spanish news agency EFE, her experience has been used by scientists at the universities of Granada and Almeria and a Madrid-based sleep clinic.

They were studying the impact of social isolation and extreme temporary disorientation on people's perception of time, the possible neuropsychological and cognitive changes humans undergo underground and the impact on circadian rhythms and sleep.

The Guinness Book of Records website awards the "longest time survived trapped underground" to the 33 Chilean and Bolivian miners who spent 69 days 688 m (2,257 ft) underground after the collapse of the San José copper-gold mine in Chile in 2010.

A spokesman for Guinness was not able to immediately confirm whether there was a separate record for voluntary time living in a cave and whether Flamini had broken it.

Reuters