The cave rescuer who now needs rescue from a 3,000-foot-deep Turkish cave says he's 'gonna need a lot of help to get out of here'

• Mark Dickey fell ill during a research mission, exploring a 3,000-foot-deep Turkish cave.
• The Hungarian Cave Rescue Service said that Dickey is experiencing gastrointestinal bleeding.

A cave rescuer now needs rescuing himself — and he's going to require a lot of help, he says.

Teams of emergency responders are in the process of trying to pull Mark Dickey, a 40-year-old American cave explorer and rescuer, out of a cave in southern Turkey, according to the European Cave Rescue Association (ECRA).

Dickey was on a research mission, 3,000 feet deep inside the Morca cave system, when the man fell ill due to a "severe gastric pain," the ECRA said in a statement on Thursday. The organization received a call about the incident on Saturday.

The Hungarian Cave Rescue Service said that Dickey was experiencing gastrointestinal bleeding. The organization was able to get to Dickey's location and provide blood transfusions, The Associated Press reported. However, he won't be able to get out of the cave on his own.

In a video update released by the Turkish government, Dickey said on Wednesday that he is "alert" but "not healed on the inside yet."

"I'm gonna need a lot of help to get out of here," Dickey said. "This is often, in the caving world, a great opportunity to show just how well the international world can get together."

More than 150 people are aiding with the rescue operation, according to the Turkish Caving Federation. Part of the immense challenge facing the rescuers is the narrowness and winding passages of the cave.

According to a GoFundMe set up for the rescue teams, Dickey is a speleologist, a person who studies caves, and a cave rescuer.

"He has participated in caving expeditions in many karst areas of the world for many years," according to the fundraising page. "In addition to his activities as a speleologist, he is also the secretary of the ECRA medical committee and an instructor for cave rescue organizations in the USA."