First responders recognized after 8-year-old boy rescued from South Carolina cave

LANCASTER, S.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) – A Lancaster County firefighter is being hailed as a hero after a young boy was rescued from a cave in August.

The 8-year-old boy got stuck on Aug. 13 while playing in the aboveground caves at the 40 Acre Rock Heritage Preserve for over an hour on

• 

• 

• 

“The cave has, it’s like a circle, you can go in the big side part of it and it goes to the top, and you can go over and then come back down the small hole,” said Capt. Larry Phillip Pegram, who’s been a firefighter for 17 years.

He said the boy did the same thing last year and was able to go right down. But this time, his size wedged him in between the rocks.

“I didn’t really know what to think,” fellow firefighter Gillis Robinson said. “You know, you go into something like that, it’s not really something you see every day.”

Pegram said pictures don’t really tell how small the space is.

“But it’s actually a very wide space, but it’s very narrow,” he said. “I mean, you’re talking 12 [to] 15 inches tops.”

Robinson, a firefighter for seven years, said he has handled several different types of rescues before but never a cave rescue.

“It was tight,” he said. “I mean, it was tight, and it was dark, but you just got to slow down and let your training take over.”

And as soon as the young boy heard that help was there, Robinson said he calmed down tremendously.

The Lancaster County Council recognized the first responders who helped during the rescue and presented Robinson with the employee of the quarter for his role in the rescue.

Robinson said he would not have been able to do it without his teammates.

“Us and EMS, and all the first [responders] together, we’re all brotherhood, and EMS, we’re all brothers and sisters,” Robinson said.

And on a scale of 1 to 10, Robinson said the rescue was “definitely a 10.”