My husband and I watched a Primetime special last night on television. It was part of a series called “The Outsiders”, which is a series about people who live abnormal lives or on the outskirts of society. I had watched parts of the series before, one of which was on polygamy, so I was interested to watch it again. This episode was about cave diving. The cave that was featured was Bushman’s Hole, a remote sinkhole in the Northern Cape province of South Africa and the third-deepest freshwater cave known to man. It began by telling the story of a young man named Deon who had died there in 1994. He had been a support diver who had blacked out during his dive and sank to his death. Primetime interviewed Deon’s parents, who had a hard time getting closure with their son’s death because his body was never recovered. At this point, it began telling the story of two divers who were close friends, Dave and Dan. Dave attempted setting a world record by diving down to the bottom of Bushman’s Hole and then, once he reached bottom, swimming around to explore a little bit. When he did this, he found Deon’s body lying on the bottom. He had a dream or premonition before the dive about finding Deon’s body, and said that, when he actually found it, it was exactly as he had dreamed it. After returning from his record setting dive, Dave was determined to attempt another dive to recover Deon’s body. When he made his attempt, he did it with a camera attached to his helmet and a body bag in tow, for containing Deon’s body. His friend, Dan, was going to be a support diver, diving nearly as deep as Dave. Everything went well, until Dave actually got to Deon’s body. When he tugged on it, the body came loose and began floating toward him. They had expected the body to just be skeletal remains, because Deon’s head and hands, that Dave had seen before because they weren’t covered with his wet suit, were exposed to the water and decayed to just the skeleton. However, that wasn’t the case. Deon’s body that was inside of the wet suit had not decayed away and floated up toward Dave. When this happened, Dave’s light that was attached to him by a line became entangled with all of Deon’s dive gear. At that great depth, Dave’s mind was unable to function properly, and he was not able to free himself. He died. Dan, who was swimming a good distance above Dave, saw his light not coming back. He tried to swim down to rescue his friend, but a gauge on his equipment busted from the pressure of the water. He had to abandon his friend and attempt to return to the surface. Because of the risk of the bends, he had to ascend over a ten hour period of time to de-pressurize. He had to try to regulate his air supply on his own, since his equipment was messed up. He developed a bad case of the bends which was making him disoriented, sick, and in great pain. When he finally returned to the surface, he was incredibly sick, and suffered ill effects for a couple of weeks. After a memorial service for Dave the next day, divers were going in to retrieve the rope that was the guide down to the bottom. When they did this, they happened to see Dave and Deon’s bodies, still entangled, had floated to the surface. Dave died in the process, but he did retrieve Deon’s body.
That was a long way to tell the background of my thoughts, but it was astounding to watch this special. My husband and I were both engrossed in the story. Because of the camera that was mounted to Dave’s helmet, when his body returned to the surface, the footage told everyone exactly what happened. It was eerie to just watch the footage. I can’t understand why anyone would want to go so deep underwater. That is like a nightmare for me. To be deep underwater, in pitch blackness, with no one near….I shudder. Even if you were to panic and want to reach the surface, you could not just swim up. You have to be disciplined enough to ascend very slowly, spending the greater part of a day de-pressurizing. It’s unfathomable to me. The things that some people do for fun are so foreign to me. At the same time, I love to watch documentary type specials on television about the same things that scare me in real life. I guess it truly takes all kinds. I reap the benefits every day of courageous and adventurous explorers who have risked life and limb to go farther, go deeper, climb higher, and think outside of the box. Without the explorers of the world, our knowledge and understanding of the world around us would be much more narrowed. So while I shudder on the couch with vicarious fear and excitement, I tip my hat to those who are braver than I.