On January 30, 1925, while trying to discover a new entrance to the system of underground caves that is a popular Kentucky tourist attraction, Collins became trapped in a narrow crawlway fifty-five feet below the surface. Efforts to save him became a worldwide media sensation, the first such of the 20th century. After four days where he could be fed, a cave-in closed the entrance passageway to everything except voice contact. Collins died of exposure and starvation after about fourteen days underground, three days before a rescue shaft could reach his location.
Reporter William Burke “Skeets” Miller from the Louisville Courier-Journal participated in and reported on the rescue effort from the scene, talking with and interviewing Collins in the cave, for which he received a Pulitzer Prize. His reports were picked up by newspapers around the country, and the rescue was followed with regular news bulletins on the relatively new medium of radio. Shortly after the media arrived, the publicity drew crowds of tourists to the site, at one point numbering in the tens of thousands. Vendors set up to sell food and souvenirs, contributing to a circus-like atmosphere. The Sand Cave rescue quickly grew into the third biggest media event between World War I and World War II. The biggest media events of that time both involved Charles Lindbergh – the trans-Atlantic flight and his son’s kidnapping – and Lindbergh actually had a minor role in the Sand Cave rescue, too, having been hired to fly photographic negatives from the scene for a newspaper.
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