Injured Explorer Makes Slow Progress From Deep Cave : Rescue: The woman and those helping her face steep drop-offs, tight passageways. It will be Thursday or Friday before she reaches the surface.

An expert cave explorer who suffered a broken leg far inside the nation’s deepest cave assisted her rescuers Tuesday by giving advice, and was in such good spirits that she asked for pizza and a hairbrush.

About 1,000 feet beneath the New Mexico desert, Emily Mobley, 40, and her rescuers maneuvered over huge boulders, past deep drop-offs and through tight passageways toward the entrance of Lechuguilla Cave in Carlsbad Caverns National Park.

Officials said it will be Thursday or Friday before Mobley gets out. Fellow spelunkers who went for help after she was injured Sunday took more than seven hours to reach the entrance, about two miles away.

The pristine cave, discovered in 1986, is not open to the public. The National Park Service allows only about 200 people in annually for exploration and mapping. It is 1,565 feet deep, and about 54 miles of passageways and rooms full of colorful, delicate rock formations have been mapped so far.

Mobley, an expert caver with 20 years of experience, fell about 12 feet Sunday while climbing down a steep slope. A rock had given way when she put her weight on it. The 80-pound rock fell on her left leg below the kneecap, breaking it.

Bob Addis, 45, of Parkersburg, W.Va., a caver who was with Mobley when the accident occurred, said she was leading a team of five cavers through an area known as the Reason Room.

“Emily went down over the rocks and she did everything absolutely correctly. She tested the rock ahead of time,” Addis said.

He said her immediate reaction to her injury was “she hoped the media didn’t find out about this.”

Despite her splinted leg, Mobley managed to move about half a mile through a moderately difficult section of the cave by Monday night.

Rick Bridges, president of the Lechuguilla Cave Project Inc., said 18 people--including a doctor--were helping. Mobley was able to hobble wherever there was enough room to stand upright.

“There were several small slopes from 10 to 30 foot they had to lower her down. . . . There was one 45-foot sloping pit she had to be lowered down; there was one 15-foot pit she had to hauled up, all that got done,” Bridges said.

By midday Tuesday, rescuers had moved her to an area called the Great White Way where they had to scale a 240-foot wall. Bridges said additional rescuers were sent in to haul her up on a stretcher.

Telephone lines were stretched into the cave so rescuers could communicate with Mobley. Bill Justice, a Carlsbad Caverns ranger, said telephone contact was made with the woman, and that she was in good spirits.

Bridges said the most difficult part of the rescue will be in an L-shaped area of the cave called the Rift.

“The Rift is a relatively level passage. The problem is it has big holes in the floor and we have to get her across those holes,” Bridges said. “Normally we scurry around them on small ledges.”

But Mobley may not be able to traverse some of the ledges. If not, she’ll have to be hauled across on a stretcher.

“This is one of the most complex and difficult cave rescues ever effected,” Bridges said.

Mobley was in good spirits but was being treated for the probable fracture and for nausea.

“She is helping herself and the last reports from people who had exited the cave is that she looked like she’ll continue helping herself today. She actually is a little stronger than she was yesterday,” Bridges said.

He said she had asked for a hairbrush and pizza.

“We can’t get her the pizza but we’re working on the hairbrush,” Justice said.