Note that it was said recently to me "so how much of this is true".

Well, ... honestly all of it.

BUT NOTE that in our lives, in our heads, when we are going through an extreme situation there are multiple voices. This day in this cave when the lights started to go out there was,

a voice of calm reason
a voice of absolute panic
a voice of abstract outer view

And probably many others. I have actually told this story from those other internal voices to people and groups. These are what I call the "Colors" in a story. For example if you stare at a tree in the fall, it is full of colors, it is a beautiful fall tree, a beautiful vibrant red leafed tree, it is a beautiful forest floor of fallen yellows, a tree of gently falling sounds, and on and on .... The story then is the same, but can be seen through different colors, or voices.

In this story, as the lanterns where on fire, one voice said to my self, "OH GOD, we're miles under ground and hours away from light", and another voice said calmly "have to put on the prep list to check carbide lantern gaskets , and later calmly "have to put extra batteries on the check list" and finally abstractly looking from outside "The fool did not remember to always look behind himself". But the best most liked voice is of course the voice full of emotion and energy, this is the voice most of us can identify with, because this is the voice that echo's our heart rate and the voice we try to control the voice everyone always talks about, "just don't panic".

And to all these internal voices I give some credit that in future caving experiences where survived. (I am still here) And survived with less of a close call, auuu not totally true, at least not close calls of the same kind. It is said often (might be just by me but I might have heard it somewhere) "A lesson learned the hard way is a lesson learned forever". Enjoy. (I also give a lot of credit to Guardian Angles that work really hard at keeping me alive) Thanks