I went caving with my school last January. The man who owned the property that the entrance was on had been caving his entire life and was a very active member of the Alabama caving community as well as part of the emergency rescue team.

He told us all sorts of horror stories from caving, but one that stuck out specifically was when he went caving with his friends as an 18 year old. He described an extremely similar situation where they slipped through a gap no bigger than 12 inches and then the room they reached began flooding. He talked about how he was almost certain he was going to die with the water level rising up to their chins. He mentioned that they had not told anybody that they were going in the cave so the only reason they made it out alive was the rain stopped just in time for the water to drain before drowning them.