Here’s some specific information on the supporting characters – family, friends, outsiders, and more – during the Floyd Collins’ incident.
Bee (Beesley) Doyle owned the property where Floyd was trapped, meaning much of the rescue and carnival used and abused his land, and sometimes his house. Floyd had been living back-and-forth between Doyle’s and the Estes’ house, which is why his disappearance led them to search for him. He later claimed the rock which trapped Floyd’s foot and used it to attract tourists.
Jewell Estes was the seventeen-year-old son of Edward Estes, who was the first to hear Floyd, though he did not make it past the cave’s final stretch. The Herald-Post crafted a fake story that it was Jewell Ester (misspelled) who fed and saved Floyd, but this is entirely. Jewell lied about reaching Floyd, though he did try to help.
The fictional character of Ed Bishop is a combination of several locals who participated in Floyd’s rescue. “Bishop” is the son of famed caver Stephen Bishop (see Caves Before 20th Century) and is one of the first on the scene. In reality, this was Edward Estes, with Bee Doyle and his son Jewell. “Bishop” participates in the rescue to replacing Marshall (the other Collins brother), farmer Van Smith, cave guide Carl Hanson, and Floyd’s old friend Johnnie Gerald.
Nellie had just come home from spending six months in the insane asylum, which Lee often used as a scapegoat for their money problems. She and Floyd were incredibly close. Miss Jane, being their stepmother, didn’t share a tight bond with the children, but she cared. Floyd told her about his dream, which she believed was a sign from God. Nellie and Miss Jane didn’t arrive at the Sand Cave until Friday, February 6th, after Floyd had been trapped for nearly a week. Both approached the rescue shaft, observed the proceedings, and remained on-site, but didn’t engage much with the rescue.
Homer, the youngest of the Collins family, was also a caver, though not as experienced as Floyd. Much of the early rescue was done by Homer, who worked in grueling conditions without sleep, even spending the night with Floyd underground. For the most part, he hated the outsiders and fought many of the ideas and attempts proposed. When the harness attempt started injuring Floyd, he pulled against the team of men in a deadly sort of tug-of-war, all to protect his brother at all costs.
Henry St. George Tucker Carmichael was the superintendent of the Kentucky Rock Asphalt Company (technically, there is no “and”). As an educated civil engineer, he worked to organize the rescue approach like no one had yet done. He wanted to drill a shaft immediately, an idea vetoed by Homer. The harness idea was actually that of Lieutenant Burdon of the Louisville fire department, attempted before Carmichael arrived.
Cliff Roney, a twenty-year-old cameraman from the Louisville Film Company, arrived on Thursday, February 5th and extensively documented what was happening, traveling back and forth to Louisville every night to develop the takes. His silent film clips of the rescue efforts , sometimes staged for dramatic effect, were watched across the nation.
A surgeon from St. Luke’s in Chicago, Dr. William H. Hazlett, arrived on Wednesday, February 4th after the cave-in. Though he had discussed amputation and the trapped Floyd was begging for it, there was no current way to reach Floyd. Even if there was, Hazlett would be too big to reach him. Hazlett instead became vital to the operation with a makeshift field hospital/first-aid station for rescuers dealing with injury or illness.
When he received the request for state aid at Cave City, Governor William J. Fields selected Lieutenant Governor Henry H. Denhardt to coordinate the remainder of the rescue work. Carmichael and Denhardt together “represented a winning engineering-military team.”
Floyd Collins - University of Utah 