A group of friends exploring a deep underground cave in Oregon made a shocking discovery when they found a young girl lost and crying in complete darkness. The thing happened at Ape Cave in Mount St Helens and was recorded on video. The video went viral quickly after being posted online.
The explorers were making their way through the narrow passages of the lava tube when they found the scared child. They had lanterns and video cameras with them. The group had been talking about whether to keep going further into the cave because they were worried about safety. The passages were getting tighter as they went deeper underground.
Josh is a 21-year-old social media star who runs the YouTube channel Exploring With Josh. He said the discovery was totally unexpected. “As we were about to leave, this little girl pops up out of nowhere and scares us,” he told in his YouTube video. The child had somehow crawled deep into the cave system all by herself without any light. When the group tried to talk to her, they learned she did not speak English. This made helping her much harder.
What the explorers found deep in the cave
The video shows the explorers crawling through dirt and rocks in passages that got smaller and smaller. At one point in the video, Josh talks about his worry over going further. “I don’t think we are meant to crawl this far,” he said while exploring. Even though they were not sure about the dangerous conditions, the group decided to keep going. This choice ended up helping them save the lost child.
The girl’s parents had been looking for their daughter and were calling her name from outside the cave. When the child heard her parents calling in their language, she agreed to go with Josh and the other people in the group back to safety. The 12-minute video showing the rescue was posted to YouTube. It has been watched over one million times since it came out.
Ape Cave is one of the longest and easiest to reach lava tubes in North America. The cave was found in 1946 and was made by lava flows from Mount St Helens about 2,000 years ago. This event shows how dangerous it can be to explore cave systems.
This is especially true for children who might walk into these underground passages without the right equipment or someone watching them. Exploring caves can be very dangerous, as shown by the story of Kenny Veach, a YouTuber who disappeared while looking for a strange cave near Area 51. The girl got out of the cave safely and was back with her parents.
While this rescue turned out well, cave rescue operations often need careful planning and special training, as seen in other well-known cases around the world.
Published: Oct 10, 2025 04:00 pm