Tribute to a good samaritan (update)

[Mike Rotch]

To give everybody a background to the story:

10 years ago a South African diver - Deon Dreyer - lost his life while trying to reach the bottom of the world's third deepest fresh water cave. As he had been diving to such great depth, nobody could determine what went wrong or in fact, recover his body, and it was left at that. In October last year, an Australian deep water diver - Simon Shaw - happened upon Dreyers remains whilst attempting to set a new world deep diving record in that cave. At those depths, a diver has about 5mins on the bottom before having to begin a 12 hour ascent to the top. The duration of the ascent is such due to recompression need due to the depth involved. He resolved to recover the body from the bottom of the cave this last weekend.

His plan was to descend to the bottom, use the 5 mins to locate the skeletal remians and tie a line to the tank for later retrieval. He had planned that every 20m down a diver be stationed to assist with the ascent. Tragedy struck when he didnt return to the first checkpoint after his 5 mins at the bottom. The last diver stationed attempted to locate Shaw at the bottom but ran out of time and as a result, suffered decompression sickness upon his ascent. Shaw had not surfaced 48hrs after his attempt and is classified lost.

What a sad way for a good deed to end. A rather insignificant tribute to a brave man, but a tribute none-the-less

edit:

An Australian diver attempting to recover a body at the bottom of one of the deepest freshwater caves in the world has been declared presumed dead, South African police said on Sunday.
Deep water diver Dave Shaw was presumed dead by police on Sunday a day after he swam almost to the bottom of the 280-metre (306.2-yard) Boesmansgat (Bushman's cave) in the Northern Cape in an attempt to recover the body of Deon Dreyer, who died while diving in the cave in 1994.
"He is still down at the bottom and presumed dead. There's no chance someone can stay alive at that depth for that long," Ernst Strydom, the national coordinator for police divers said.
Police said Shaw and other deep water experts had found Deon Dreyer's remains in the cave by chance on a previous expedition while attempting to set a new deep water diving record, and had decided to try to recover the remains.
Concern was first raised about Shaw when he failed to appear at a designated meeting point on his way back to the surface at a depth of around 220 metres.
Strydom said Shaw had requested that none of his colleagues in the team of eight international divers should try to retrieve his body in case of an accident.
His family had been informed of the death, Strydom said.
Shaw was a Captain with Cathay Pacific Airways and lived in Hong Kong. He was married and has two adult children living in Australia, his website says.
Dreyer, a South African, died while diving in the cave in 1994, aged 20, during a family holiday.

 

[Blake]

Rather sad, it would have been a great deed and I guess giving your own life to resect someone elses is also a good deed

Blake

 

[ND4SPD]

Wow, I feel sorry for both of them.

 

[ExigeEvan]

Man that sucks, but an honourable way to die I suppose.

 

[PublicSecrecy]

Caving history was just re-written. Poor gaffers. At least he went honourably, and doing something he loved.

 

[Giancarlo]

I agree. What a noble guy.

 

[Mike Rotch]

What makes it even worse is that the diver that went after him saw his head-light in the murkiness, but as he neared it, two of his three re-breather computers imploded due to the high pressure and he had to high-tail it to the surface.

So sad.

 

[tabs]

Bummer. I never know how to respond to these threads...

 

[Emohawk]

What makes it even worse is that the diver that went after him saw his head-light in the murkiness, but as he neared it, two of his three re-breather computers imploded due to the high pressure and he had to high-tail it to the surface.

So sad.

Oooooh, that's the stuff of creepy stories . I hope for Shaw's sake he didn't see the guy coming to get him and then turn back.

So there's two of 'em down there now. That sucks.

 

[Mike Rotch]

I think the one positive thing for Shaw and his family is that once things went wrong it was quick and he didnt suffer.

As he stated that nobody should retrieve his body should things go awry, it will remain there, leaving little closure to the whole story

 

[Acid X]

Wow. That's really horrible.. Too bad for the guy. I'm sure that his assistant or whatever would have made it down to rescue him if it wasnt for those stupid computers imploding! I'm sure he felt complete guilt after seeing the man's helmet light, and not being able to go down to save him because of the computers imploding.. :\

May he, and the other guy that tried to go down in '94, rest in peace.

 

[Mike Rotch]

Well, some closure was achieved last week. Police divers where retrieving some equipment from the dive, and this involved hauling up the drop line that ran from the surface to the bottom of the cave.

As they hauled it up, two bodies floated to the surface attached to it. It seems Shaw had completed putting Dreyer in a body bag and attaching it to the line when something went wrong. As Shaw was wearing a camcorder on his helmet, the police have a better idea of what went wrong. An autopsy will also be done this week.

From the video footage, it seems that Shaw exerted himself too much trying to get the body into the body bag. His breathing became heavy, and at such depths and whilst being on complicated air-nitrogen mixtures, it was a recipe for disaster. It appears as if he blacked out or suffocated due to the heavy respiration making his mixture insufficient to sustain him. He realise he was in trouble and purposely tangled himself to the drop line, thus allowing retrieval.

More details to follow as they are made available.

 

[Blake]

Wow, that's interesting to know. Poor guy, it sort of saddens me that he tangled himself up just to make his own retrieval easier . May they Rest In Peace.

Blake

 

[PublicSecrecy]

Smart guy.