Michael Pirie died Saturday trying to save his club president and friend.
Grant Lockenbach, the president of UF’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes, was climbing down to get a bag full of ropes that had fallen 125 feet during a cave exploration in northwest Georgia when his rope got tangled.
Pirie went down into the cave to help Lockenbach but both eventually died of hypothermia.
Pirie’s dad, Brent Pirie, said Lockenbach was his son’s role model, so when he got stuck in the cave, his son knew what he had to do.
“I know that the greatest thing you can do is lay down your life,” Pirie’s father said. “He saw a need, that a brother was in trouble, and he went to provide comfort. I wish there would have been a better outcome.”
Pirie and Lockenbach, 18 and 20 respectively, were exploring Ellison’s Cave with a group of eight friends, said David Ashburn, director of emergency services for Walker County, Ga.
Near the mouth of the cave, someone dropped the bag, and Lockenbach rappelled down to get it.
He’d been trained to rappel out of helicopters.
“The first person to volunteer for something was always him,” said David Hassan, a UF Army ROTC cadet sergeant who trained with Lockenbach.
Halfway down, Ashburn said, Lockenbach’s ropes tangled. A 40-degree waterfall poured onto his helmet and soaked his T-shirt and shorts.
He called for help, and Pirie rappelled down on the same rope.
“That’s something that he would do,” said Matt Seldine, who taught Pirie in the UF Drumline.
Seldine said Pirie always thought of others before himself.
“It was just who he was,” he said.
Ashburn said Pirie got stuck on the rope right above Lockenbach. After half an hour, their cries for help grew faint and stopped.
Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson said that hypothermia can start to set in after 15 minutes.
Their friends went back to their cars and called 911 at 2:19 p.m. Phones and radios don’t work in Ellison’s Cave, Ashburn said.
Emergency responders reached the men about an hour later, but they had already passed. Their bodies were removed from the rope around 10 p.m.
Friends said that a small condolence is that they didn’t suffer. Both men were Christians, and many of their friends and family have found solace in faith.
Pirie, a marketing freshman from Ocoee, was a jokester, Seldine said.
During finals week in December, Pirie was in the Reitz Union with some friends, and he could feel tension in the room from people cramming for exams.
He wanted to cheer them up.
He had Starbucks straws, and he fashioned them into one long straw. He put his sweatshirt’s hood up, stuck both straw ends behind his ears and pretended to be an alien.
“He was walking around the Reitz, weaving in and out of people, just trying to make them laugh,” Seldine said.
Lockenbach, a sociology senior from DeLand, was described as the type of guy to live in the moment.
“He would literally run to every class,” Josh Denison, 20, said. “And he wouldn’t even be running late.”
Lockenbach was a cadet the National Guard’s 927th combat sustainment support battalion. Denison said he didn’t have to act like a tough guy — he just was.
But he loved a good prank.
While the two were driving one day, Lockenbach convinced Denison to squirt another cadet’s moving car with ketchup and then heave a bottle of mayonnaise onto the windshield.
“I was just laughing so hard that it was hurting,” said Hassan, the cadet whose car and clothes fell victim to Lockenbach’s condiment trap.
Friends found out about the accident Saturday night. Both men’s Facebook pages were flooded with recollections of memories and condolences.
One of the last Facebook messages Lockenbach posted was on Feb. 9, three days before the accident. It said he was in a relationship.
More than 500 people remembered them at a prayer service at Abundant Grace Church Sunday night.
“Lord, this was not how you were supposed to answer our prayers for FCA,” one mourner prayed.
On stage was Pirie’s drumline jersey, number 45. Members of the drumline retired his number and presented his jersey and the top of his drums to his dad.
Pirie’s dad embraced the drumline leaders. All of them were red-eyed.
“When I walked in there and saw his jersey up there with his drums,” Pirie’s dad said, “my heart just pounded.”
At the service, Dustin Gill, one of Lockenbach’s roommates, told about a conversation he had with Lockenbach in December about death.
“I remember that Grant said, ‘I don’t want to die, but if I died today I’d be OK, because I lived an awesome life,’” Gill said.
Lockenbach is survived by his mom, Patti, his father, Barry, and his brother, Alexander.
Pirie is survived by his mom, Sandra Haines, his dad, Brent Pirie, his older sister, Lauren Pirie, his younger sister, Rebecca Pirie, and his grandparents, Robert and Ruth VanderLugt and Robert and Bette Rae Pirie.
Lockenbach’s funeral will be for family.
Pirie’s funeral will be Sunday at 2 p.m. at Lake Highland Middle School Bourne Chapel in Orlando. Friends and members of the community are welcome to attend.
Pirie’s father said there will be a memorial service for his son Saturday night at the Baldwin Fairchild Funeral Home in Orlando. A specific time has not been set yet.
