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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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(#2) At Least Eight Divers Have Perished in Jacob's Well Due to False Exits and Blinding Silt
In Texas, a beautiful diving spot known as Jacob's Well has developed a reputation as one of the most dangerous places to dive in the country. Although alluring, at least eight divers have lost their lives in Jacob's Well, with perhaps the worst being young Richard Patton. The Southwest Texas State University student was looking for a way to move from chamber to chamber in the cave, and ended up getting stuck in a false chimney that looked like a way out.
In parts of this underwater cave system, the floors are covered in fine gravel or silt and if a flipper so much as brushes the surface, the stirred-up sediment completely obscures a diver's vision, effectively blinding them.
Free-diver Diego Adame recorded his terrifying near-drowning in the caves, after he lost a flipper and had to jettison his weight belt in a dash for the surface.
Don Dibble, a nearby dive shop owner who is usually the one to pull the remains of dead divers out of the cave, attempted to seal of the depths of the well by installing a gate to stop people from going too deep. Shortly after, he found the gate destroyed with a note saying "You can't keep us out." Although extremely dangerous, it seems the cave is too alluring to stay away.
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(#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.
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(#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.
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(#5) A Dive Group Gets Separated from Instructor, Spends 28 Hours Floating in Open Water
While on a tour in Bali, Indonesia, a group of seven people were separated from their boat while out diving. Bad weather was to blame, and the two instructors and five Japanese women floated in open water for 28 hours before eventually reaching a rocky islet where they were rescued two days later. During that harrowing ordeal, one of the women died, with her body being found 30 kilometers from the islet, while one of the instructors went missing in the open water.
The whole thing received even more scrutiny when it was discovered the company that took the group out on their dive was operating with an expired permit.
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(#6) Two Divers Perish During Dangerous Dive, Friends Go Back to Retrieve Their Bodies
In Norway, five friends embarked on a dangerous mission to explore a deep cave system in Norway. Going past the 100-meter mark, one of the divers got stuck in a passage and signaled for help. His friend in front of him turned back and did everything he could, but horrifically had to watch his friend die in front of his eyes. The accident caused another diver to panic - which is the worst thing you can do while diving - and he died, too.
After the survivors made it back, the authorities deemed a retrieval mission for the dead bodies to be too dangerous. But that didn't stop the original divers from planning a secret, extensive rescue mission, and seven weeks later, they went back into the dangerous cave system and successfully retrieved their fallen friends.
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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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(#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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(#9) Operator Error Takes the Life of an Experienced Diver
During one of his many dives at Dutch Springs recreation area, 38-year-old Eugene Fleysher accidentally drowned. He was found unresponsive in the water after ascending from around 30 feet. An autopsy report revealed that his equipment was poorly maintained and maladjusted, which only highlights the importance of always checking your gear before diving. Fleysher is just one of at least 16 people who have died in that same spot over the last 30 years.
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(#10) Father and Son Found Dead After Testing Their Christmas Gifts
A Florida father and his 15-year-old son got new scuba diving equipment for Christmas, and immediately went out to Eagles Nest Sink underwater caves in Weeki Wachee, Florida, to test it out. The father was an experienced diver, but the son was not certified yet, and both were not experienced when it came to cave diving. After entering the cave around 11 am on Christmas morning, their bodies were found that evening around 8:30 pm. At least six other divers have lost their lives in the same cave system.
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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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(#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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(#13) Two Divers Go Too Deep and Die Mysteriously
Diving past a certain point comes with serious risks. Even the most experienced divers can die at a moment's notice thanks to harsh deep-water conditions. During a deep dive near Nanaimo, two divers met their end after attempting to dive too deep within the popular diving spot.
We will never quite know what happened, but we do know that a group of three men went out to enjoy a day of diving. One of the men stayed at a shallower area while the other two descended deeper. Something went wrong and one of the men drowned underwater, while the other struggled back up to the surface. At that point, though, it was too late and the injuries from the dive took the second man's life, as well.
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(#14) Inexperience Leads to Death in a Narrow, Silty Cave
Always know exactly what you're able to handle, because diving will never go easy on you. Two friends who were inexperienced in cave diving ran out of air and drowned in an underwater cavern in Lake Apopka. They didn't know what they were getting into and dove in an area that was incredibly restrictive and silty.
When diving in an area with a lot of silt, it's easy to stir it up and create a fog that hinders all sight. What most likely happened is that the two were down in the cave, someone stirred up debris, they lost track of where they were, they panicked, and then drowned. Later reports reveal that the two didn't have anything close to the proper gear needed to make a successful cave dive.
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(#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.
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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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