Random Terrifying Scuba Accidents That Will Make You Think Twice About Diving (16 items)

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  (#16) A Tragic Diving Accident Turns Suspicious After All Evidence Is Erased

  What was supposed to be a trip of a lifetime turned into something far more tragic when a young 23-year-old died on her first introductory scuba dive at the Great Barrier Reef. The young woman was learning the basics when she got separated from her instructor. About a half an hour later, she was found on the sea floor and was declared dead by drowning.

  A short time later, her friends and family asked for pictures from the boat right before she went on her dive, but they were shocked to discover that all pictures from that day were inexplicably deleted. The family doesn't necessarily suspect foul play, but they question why they would need to delete those photos if they didn't reveal something important. 
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  (#7) A Diving Lesson Goes Horribly Wrong

  In this harrowing tale, a boyfriend recounts how the love of his life almost died due to negligence from her instructors. While taking diving lessons, the man's girlfriend felt she was being harassed by the instructors, who wouldn't teach her the simple maneuvers she felt she needed to learn. During one of the dives, the girl's regulator (the device you hold in your mouth to breathe oxygen from your tank) was laden with sand, which caused malfunctions while she was underwater.

  She took off her regulator and reached for her "octopus" (a back-up regulator) to help her breathe, but her instructor stopped her from doing so and forced her to try again with her own regulator. It caused the girl's stress to get even worse, and when the boyfriend tried to come help, the instructor pushed him away. As the girl was choking, the instructor tried shoving the regulator into her mouth, but missed and just hit her in the face instead. This shocked her and caused her to inhale water, so the boyfriend grabbed the girl and took her to the surface.

  When they reached the top, the instructor started yelling at her that they needed to continue her training while she was literally throwing up water and begging for her life. She was hospitalized and was close to death for quite awhile. Miraculously, she pulled through, but now suffers from memory loss, depression, and a fear of water.
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  (#12) Disobeying Instructions Cause an Avoidable Diving Death

  While exploring the Blue Hole, experienced diver Shane Thompson met his demise after a tragic, avoidable accident. He entered the diving spot with another experienced diver, Mike Young, and the two were navigating the cave system together. Once they got to a certain part, they agreed that Young would go on exploring while Thompson stayed outside where it was safer. But instead of staying put, Thompson entered the area and something went wrong. He started to panic and eventually drowned. 
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  (#1) A Diver Spends 10 Hours in Darkness with His Dead Friend More Than 900 Feet Under Water

  Friends Don Shirley and Dave Shaw went diving almost 1,000 feet underwater in Bushman's Cave in South Africa when seeking to recover the remains of Deon Dreyer, who had died in the cave a decade before. More people have walked on the moon than have descended to such depths.

  Video footage recovered later revealed that Shaw lost his light at depths and became entangled in the lines he was using to hoist Dreyer's body. 

  Meanwhile, an equipment failure led to Shirley accidentally receiving too much oxygen, which can have serious or even fatal effects. Then he developed a helium bubble that caused him to lose consciousness and let go of the guideline that told him how to get back out of the caves. He was spinning, disoriented, vomiting, searching for the line in total darkness, and not even knowing which was was up towards the surface.

  Eventually Shirley righted himself, but he still had to wait in the water for another 10 hours, slowly ascending, because going up to the surface more quickly would have given him the bends, a condition when divers get "bubbles" of air in their blood from returning to the surface too fast.

  However, Shaw's body eventually floated to the surface, attached to Dreyer's.

  (A riveting and terrifying audio account of the story is available on from NPR's This American Life.)
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  (#11) A Diver Dies After a Powerful Blast of Water Smashes Him Against a Wall

  Two experienced divers were exploring a deep cavern at the Blue Spring State Park when tragedy struck. While diving, the force of the water suddenly knocked one diver's mask off and tore his regulator out of his mouth. The force was so powerful that it then slammed him into the wall. His diving partner failed to help him; then panic forced the partner to ascend rapidly, which resulted in his hospitalization. When authorities dove back in to retrieve the dead body, they found the diver pinned between a cavern wall and a rock and struggled to remove him. 
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  (#8) A Russian Diver Is Cut in Half By a Boat Propeller

  In what has got to be one of the most horrific ways to die, two divers met their tragic ends while diving in Thailand. Even though they were in the proper diving zone, upon surfacing, two men were hit by a passing speedboat, cutting one of them in half and sending the other man sinking below the surface. To survive the dangers of diving only to be cut in half by a reckless boat driver is a cruel fate, and just shows how careful you need to be of your surroundings at all times.

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