The teens are hospitalized with hypothermia after their ordeal in the Withlacoochee State Forest in Citrus County. Eight boys and two counselors began their journey into the popular limerock caves of the Withlacoochee State Forest Monday as a simple outing in the wild. But when the group from the San Antonio Boy's Village in Pasco County ventured into the well-known opening called Peace Cave in early afternoon, the exploration took a treacherous turn. Two boys, ages 15 and 16, became trapped at a hairpin turn in the cold, oxygen- starved, 50-foot tunnel. For more than two hours, rescuers labored over the craggy, narrow hole in the ground. "They are alive and we're going to get them out," firefighter Lisa Burnes of the District One Chassahowitzka Fire Station said. "Everybody's working together. We have a positive outlook." Shortly after 5 p.m., with daylight fading, a human chain of more than a half-dozen trimly built rescuers snaked into the cave to pull one boy out headfirst. Thirty minutes later, the second emerged. Both were taken to the hospital and treated for hypothermia. Barely responsive when pulled from the cave, the first boy was carried under protective cover to a pickup truck, where he was tied to the bed, covered with a blanket, given oxygen and put on a heart monitor before being transported out of the 43,000-acre forest to a waiting helicopter. "I'll come to visit you," one of the elated boys cried out. An official with St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa confirmed his name as Michael Sharrow, 15. The second youngster, confirmed by the hospital as Javarick Henderson, 16, appeared less responsive initially and also was airlifted. The hospital official said they were in good condition after being trapped underground for hours and would be released Monday night. "(Michael) told his friend he thought they were going to die," said Mike Sharrow, Michael's father. Sharrow said his son Michael's memory of the incident is foggy. "He just remembers going into the cave, falling unconscious and banging his head on the ground as they were dragging him out. "There should've been somebody in the cave with the boys," Sharrow said. "Michael said there were no counselors in the cave because they were too big to get in there." The boy's village chief counselor John Chandler called in the emergency about 3:15 p.m., Burnes said. Within 15 minutes, rescuers from a half-dozen agencies were converging on the scene east of County Road 491 and north of County Road 480, about a mile inside the state-owned forest, she said. The trip was not unusual for groups from San Antonio Boy's Village, a residential facility for delinquent children in San Antonio, village executive director Al Capodiferro said. "They enjoy it. It's one of their favorite type of field trips," he said. "It's more of a recreational experience type of thing" rather than a formal lesson in the village's program. "This was supposed to be a fishing trip but it was too cold, so they opted for the caves," Capodiferro said. Chandler said he could not comment about the incident, but he was overheard telling rescuers that the emergency began around 2 p.m. There was so little oxygen in the cave that Sharrow and Henderson drifted in and out of consciousness. "I talked to them right to the moment they passed out," he said. Most of Peace Cave is easily explored, said Lt. Gene Newman of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. It is about 50 feet long as it heads west, and a 6-foot-tall person can stand up inside. But the trapped youths took a side turn north into a hairpin turn, he said. "It's a booger of a hole," he said. Firefighter Donnie Mabesoone, 21, was chosen for the rescue chain because of his thinbuild and was at the front of the line with the victims. "It was a tight one," he said . "I had to lay on my belly and crawl down through this area military style." He recalled that both boys could respond to commands. As they looked on, authorities said they have been concerned for years about cave exploring within the forest, a popular destination for hikers and horseback riders, as well. Peace Cave, which gets its name from a graffiti peace symbol painted on a large oak tree at the entrance, is near a popular series of tunnels called Dames Cave and inevitably attracts the curious. A half-hearted attempt at deterring visitors and partiers was made a decade ago by placing concrete blocks along the roads leading to the caves. But they are wide apart and easily bypassed by cars. A suggestion to forgo cave exploring after evening is regularly ignored, he said. The state Division of Forestry, which oversees the area, does not require permits, he said. After the rescue, officials are planning to discuss safety in the caves and review public access policies. "We're going to have to critique this with the state and our fire guys," Citrus County Fire Training Officer Fred Beckner said.- Staff writer Jorge Sanchez contributed to this report.