Rescuers capture the moment an explorer is found and stretchered through a 1,000m deep cave system following a rock fall. Courtesy: Sky News

FOOTAGE has emerged of painstaking attempts by emergency services to rescue a German explorer who spent nearly a week 1000 metres underground stuck in a cave underneath the mountains between Germany and Austria.

Johann Westhauser was badly hurt during a rock fall on June 8 while exploring the Riesending caves, near the town of Berchtesgaden by the Austrian border, Sky New reports.

Westhauser was one of the team who discovered the Riesending cave system in 1995 and regularly explored it to discover its extremities.

Film shot by Italian rescuers shows the cave pioneer — who suffered head injuries in his fall — being carried on a stretcher stage-by-stage through the cave in what is possibly the largest rescue attempt of a caver ever seen in Europe.

EXPLORER STUCK: Clock ticks on rescue of Johann Westhauser

Two-hundred volunteers from across the region assisted in the operation.

Westhauser’s rescue was hampered due to the logistic challenge of removing him from the narrow cave system.

“The conditions are extremely narrow. The rescue won’t be easy,” Dr Christoph Specht told news channel NTV last week. “There are only a few people in Germany who know how to handle such a rescue.”

In order to reach the 52-year-old the rescue team had to battle difficult terrain including complex vertical shafts and narrow passages.

Doctors had to manoeuvre 4km into the cave to reach Mr Westhauser and make sure he was fit and well enough to be brought out safely.

Mr Westhauser was exploring the cave system — the deepest of its kind in Germany — with two other people who were not hurt, when he was injured in the rock fall.