Rebreather Dive goes wrong - Dave Shaw in Bushman's Hole
If there is one thing in common for most rebreather dive fora and discussion groups, it is maximum depth. Rebreathers have the potential to take you significantly deeper than conventional "open-circuit" scuba gear with much lower amount of gas consumption - and therefore tanks to haul. Also, modern advanced rebreather systems monitor and adjust your gas mix (oxygen and nitrogen, at greater depths also helium) but in turn, these electronic compounds demand careful attention and constant monitoring themselves.
But as more and more of these (previously exclusively military) systems have become available to the civilian public, along with certification agencies and demanding training programmes, deep wrecks and especially caves have become the rebreather diver's preferred playgrounds.
In South Africa, a rebreather diver named Dave Shaw successfully completed a world record dive two years ago, inside a huge freshwater-filled cave known as Bushman's Hole. While he spent a few precious minutes exploring the bottom, he found the body of a diver who died here ten years earlier. He was unable to move it as it was stuck in the mud, but marked it with a line and returned to his long ascent and hour-long decompression schedule.
As soon as he surfaced, he announced a plan to his dive buddies: to go back and retrieve the body and return it to the dead diver's family.
Read the full story in this article of Outside Magazine.
But beware: this is a tale of an extreme dive gone tragically wrong, the diver who set out to recover the dead body he found ends up dead himself, his best friend and backup diver gets seriously bent with permanent consequences, and due to a grim twist the two deceased divers surface by themselves while the team is picking up their shot lines and safety gear...
A terrible story, but a well-written account of it. If you wonder why people do things like this, maybe you will get a better understanding after reading this article. And if you are more into audio (and can stand ABC's style of reporting) you can also listen to a podcast about the story, provided by ABC News.
But as more and more of these (previously exclusively military) systems have become available to the civilian public, along with certification agencies and demanding training programmes, deep wrecks and especially caves have become the rebreather diver's preferred playgrounds.
In South Africa, a rebreather diver named Dave Shaw successfully completed a world record dive two years ago, inside a huge freshwater-filled cave known as Bushman's Hole. While he spent a few precious minutes exploring the bottom, he found the body of a diver who died here ten years earlier. He was unable to move it as it was stuck in the mud, but marked it with a line and returned to his long ascent and hour-long decompression schedule.
As soon as he surfaced, he announced a plan to his dive buddies: to go back and retrieve the body and return it to the dead diver's family.
Read the full story in this article of Outside Magazine.
But beware: this is a tale of an extreme dive gone tragically wrong, the diver who set out to recover the dead body he found ends up dead himself, his best friend and backup diver gets seriously bent with permanent consequences, and due to a grim twist the two deceased divers surface by themselves while the team is picking up their shot lines and safety gear...
A terrible story, but a well-written account of it. If you wonder why people do things like this, maybe you will get a better understanding after reading this article. And if you are more into audio (and can stand ABC's style of reporting) you can also listen to a podcast about the story, provided by ABC News.
Labels: Rebreathers, Scuba Diving
posted by leptonyx at 01:24
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