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

• 

  (#15) A Return Dive Ends in Death for Lithuanian Cave Diver

  In 2011, three Lithuanian divers wanted to explore a recently-discovered ballistic missile shaft in Latvia. It sounded like a wonderful way to learn about history and observe something amazing. The three went on a dive and it was absolutely successful. They loved it so much that they decided to go back a second time, only this time they weren't so lucky, The second dive ended with the death of one of the divers. A memorial video was soon uploaded to YouTube highlighting the man's love of diving. 
• 

  (#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. 
• 

  (#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.
• 

  (#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.)
• 

  (#3) A Diver Panics and Succumbs to Nitrogen Narcosis, Removing His Own Breathing Apparatus

  In April 2000, Russian diver Yuri Lipski geared up to dive at one of the world's most beautiful diving spots, the Blue Hole. Located on the east coast of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, the spot has become a must for divers who want to see the coral-lined, 394-foot-deep sink hole.

  Lipski ended up dying at around the 300-foot mark. When you go that deep, your body is often subjected to nitrogen narcosis, a mental state that starts off similar to extreme drunkenness, but can eventually cause severe mental symptoms like hallucinations, paranoia, confusion, vertigo, and eventually death.

  Lipski's body and found that the diver had been recording at the time of his death. The footage is on YouTube, and it's highly disturbing to watch the diver start to panic and thrash around. In the end, he removes his breathing apparatus and the recording stops. 
• 

  (#4) An Experienced Diver Vanishes in a Wrecked Ship Without a Trace

  No matter how much experience you have diving, one small mistake or error can lead to your death. Diver Tom Pritchard was working on attaching a mooring line to the famed wreck of the Andrea Doria, which had come loose, when he suddenly vanished. Pritchard had close to 1,000 dives under his belt and the divers working with him had said Pritchard had a reputation for being incredibly careful and detail-oriented when it came to his dives.

  In the end, it didn't matter. When the other divers surfaced, they immediately noticed Pritchard was not with them. The Coast Guard was called to sweep the area, but found nothing, and the captain of the ship that Pritchard was on had to make the difficult call to not let the divers go back down immediately to look for Pritchard.

  The Andrea Doria wreckage has always been dangerous and has claimed more than 15 lives due to its unstable nature. As his remains still haven't been found, we might never know whether Pritchard died from equipment failure, a medical emergency, or if some part of the ship simply collapsed around him. 

New Random Displays    Display All By Ranking