[chris]

Two teenage boys spent nearly five hours trapped beneath collapsed ice and snow inside a cave along a Cascade Mountains creek east of Seattle in August 2008, after a wide section of the cave's roof gave way above them, authorities said.

The boys, ages 14 and 17, had hiked about two miles up the Denny Creek Trail in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, near Snoqualmie Pass, with their mothers and sisters on Aug. 21. One mother had photographed the boys standing roughly 15 feet inside the cave moments before the roof gave way, according to fire officials who later reviewed the rescue.

The mothers called 911 from the scene. Becky McCracken, the King County dispatcher who took the call, recognized immediately how serious the situation was and stayed on the phone with the women for close to an hour, working to pinpoint their location in the rugged ravine as crews mobilized. One of the mothers later said McCracken's voice was "incredible" and "very, very reassuring."

Firefighters from Eastside Fire and Rescue, along with crews from Bellevue, Snoqualmie Pass Fire and Rescue, Seattle Mountain Rescue, the King County Sheriff's Office and King County Search and Rescue, converged on a rock-walled ravine at the top of a waterfall, where meltwater running beneath the winter's lingering snowpack had carved a network of ice caves as deep as 20 feet. Rescuers cut through ice blocks roughly a foot thick with a chain saw and eventually heard the boys yelling back.

The younger boy was pulled free first. The older boy was freed roughly five hours after the collapse, shortly before 7 p.m. Both were flown that evening to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle aboard a Navy helicopter. Rescuers said the boys survived largely because they had landed next to boulders that kept the ice from crushing them completely. Both suffered broken backs, and one also broke an ankle; both required surgery.

The boys were expected to make full recoveries, their mothers said at the time. In April 2009, King County officials commended McCracken for the hourlong 911 call, crediting her with keeping both mothers calm enough to relay the details that guided rescuers to the site.