Gad Sharvit plummeted into 12-meter-deep pit as he led a group on an unmarked trail at the Luzit caves.
By JPOST.COM STAFFcave 224 88(photo credit: Channel 10)
Gad Sharvit, the 33-year-old tour guide who died early Friday after falling down a 12-meter pit in the Luzit caves near Beit Shemesh, will be laid to rest at 11 p.m. Saturday at the Givat Shaul cemetery in Jerusalem.
Sharvit, from Mevaseret Zion, had been leading a group of employees from the Tiv Ta'am supermarket chain on an unmarked trail, police reported.
Magen David Adom and the IAF's elite 669 search and rescue unit were called to the scene.
MDA paramedic Hanan Meir told Israel Radio that Sharvit had fallen a distance of about 12 meters. He said that when he saw the height of the fall and Sharvit's condition, he told his team to stop its resuscitation efforts. A doctor from the 669 unit then pronounced Sharvit dead, said Meir.
The Luzit caves are a network of man-made hidden caves similar to those at the nearby Beit Guvrin.
The spot is frequented by hikers wishing to see the caves that were used as dwellings, cisterns, storage spaces, quarries and tombs in the Hellenistic period. They also visit the site to see the impressive Arabic inscriptions of the early Islamic period and carvings of crosses and geometric patterns apparently from the late Roman or Byzantine period.
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