January 10, 2005
IRRESPONSIBILITY REACHES NEW DEPTHS:
Leave me down there...: Champion diver knew cave recovery might end badly (Jonathan Ancer, January 10, 2005, The Mercury)
'If something goes wrong, leave me down there. I want my final resting place to be in Boesmansgat."The meaning of world-record diver Dave Shaw's instructions to his team on Friday night was clear: he knew there was a real chance that he would not survive his attempt to recover the remains of another diver from the 271m-deep Boesmansgat cave near Dani‘lskuil in the Northern Cape, the world's third-deepest freshwater cave.
Shaw also said specifically that should he not return, no divers should follow his example and risk their lives in trying to recover his body.
Tragically, Saturday's meticulously planned dive did go horribly wrong and Shaw failed to return from the bed of the cave. What exactly happened to him will probably never be known.
Australian-born Shaw, 50, a Hong Kong-based airline pilot, had found the body of Deon Dreyer, 20, on October 28 last year, when he clinched the record for the deepest cave dive using special rebreathing equipment.
When he returned to the surface, he promised Theo and Marie Dreyer that he would go down again and fetch the remains of their son, who had died in the cave on December 17 1994.
So why not let the kid rest there? Posted by Orrin Judd at January 10, 2005 12:00 AM
There was a story here a few years ago about a father and son black coral diving team.
They harvest at around 200 feet, which is as deep as you can go frequently, and they all end up with at least a degree of permanent bends.
The son had been away and come back to start diving with his father. They were around 220 feet when something went wrong on the son's dive.
The father raced him to the surface, without decompressing, knowing he would die.
People act funny sometimes.
Son's blood showed traces of coke, smack and pot.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at January 10, 2005 3:24 PM