1:10 AM EDT, Fri June 24, 2022. Authorities identified the two divers as Todd Richard McKenna, 52, and Stephen Roderick Gambrell, 63. "Not only did it endanger the lives of divers who would risk going farther than they should," said Sorenson, who was by then even more firmly convinced that their son had not died in the cave, "it put all of our lives at risk because we have to go in to recover the bodies." [2], Reports of a missing diver in the Vortex Spring cave spread and other cave divers volunteered for what they assumed would be a recovery operation, taking advantage of the weekend. But what happened to a keen young explorer deep in the bowels of Utah's famous cave system must surely take the cake as the worst death of all time. Trained cave divers who died in the most recent time period were older but little else differed. Updated He had left his dog in Santa Rosa Beach and had not given Greer any indication of such plans. The PubMed wordmark and PubMed logo are registered trademarks of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). This is the second of a two-part series about the mysterious disappearance of Ben McDaniel, a certified open water SCUBA diver that has been missing since August 18, 2010. July 1 - The progress of Belgian cave diver Ben Reymenants and engineers pumping out water convince them to stay. Thirty separate tests of the water over the next several months showed no sign of an increase in the bacteria that would indicate the presence of a decomposing human body. Undercurrent, 1988 . [22], By 2011, it seemed unlikely that Ben's body would be found in the cave. The cave diving death of Dave Shaw is a multilayered tragedy. When their football practice ended on Saturday 23 June, 2018, the 12 members of Wild Boars decided to go cave exploring with assistant coach Ekkaphon . Dave Shaw was determined to bring this missing person's remains back to his family and set out on his final mission in 2005. Discovery Company. The rescue mission became a body recovery operation, but it became apparent that it would simply be too dangerous to get John out of the passage. Home Bizarre Bizarre and Creepy Events The Missing Diver Ben McDaniel. [1], Some other events reported to have occurred on the day Ben disappeared supported that theory. The incident was reported on Divernet, although at . "If I had to guess his son suffered from some horrible narcosis. He called his mother on his cell phone, the last contact he had with his family. Manatee Springs SP cave fatality. He has never been seen again. In 2004, Dave Shaw completed a record-breaking dive at Bushman's Hole. Three tanks believed to belong to Ben were recovered. Warning: the attached video shows Shaw's personal camera footage from the moments leading up to his death, and they are unpleasant. A private investigator they hired believes that his body may have been removed before any authorities were contacted, or that he may even have been murdered on land and the narrative of his disappearance fabricated as a cover story. He is thought to be part of the group that first found the boys on the Monday. Equipment failure and training are rarely an issue for experienced divers, while insufficient training is the most . However, you might think that when 2 workers left for coffee without waiting for Ben, he couldRead more . An estimated 92,000 people died at the camp, according to the Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem. They did see the truck the next morning. Your effort and contribution in providing this feedback is much . "Ultimately the decision was made that it was too much risk for the rescuers to remain there in an effort to get him out and the decision was made to leave him in place.". The body of a cave diver still remains trapped upside-down after his ghastly death. Authorities began to consider these possibilities and adjust their search. Dive-related fatalities among tourist and local divers in the northern Croatian littoral (1980-2010). But when John breathed in again, his chest expanded and he was wedged inside for good. After seven dives, he apologized to the McDaniels for not finding any fresh sign of Ben. Ben Davison. The rescue mission became a body recovery operation, but it became apparent that it would simply be too dangerous to get John out of the passage. [2], Sorenson, who has been described by the Tampa Bay Times as being able to go where other divers cannot,[2] persisted. March 31, 2016 / 5:35 PM / AP. When the two men came back up, they talked with one another and then dove back in, authorities said. Normally, because cave diving is so dangerous, it's logical to think that he experienced an unfortunate accident while diving. This policy was instituted after the deaths of 13 divers in the cave during the 1990s, and in response to threats from the state to ban diving in the cave entirely. document.getElementById("ak_js_1").setAttribute("value",(new Date()).getTime()); document.getElementById("ak_js_2").setAttribute("value",(new Date()).getTime()); My husband used to dive that. Taran, who had suspected for some time that Ben was forcing the gate open, went down to him and unlocked it, watching Ben go in and then returning to Cronin. The main causes of death have been drowning when cave diving, drowning as the result of flooding or negotiating deep water, injuries incurred from falling from a height, and injuries incurred as the result of rock falls.In ten cases the bodies have not been recovered. appreciated. At 46, Brod was a highly regarded diver, a gruff, opinionated man who as a boy in El Campo had swum along . He was wearing a dive mask, fins, and a wet suit. He found nothing no body, and no evidence of one such as increased activity by carnivorous aquatic scavengers, nor any evidence that Ben had gotten into those sections, such as marks on the cave walls or disturbed silt. Two days later, it was noticed that Bens car was still in the parking lot where it had remained for the past two days. We were able to hold his hand at some point.". The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the Marson Kay, 29, of Gainesville apparently became disoriented during a dive in Weeki Wachee's main spring and got wedged in an underwater cavern, authorities said. He made three separate dives that day,[1] going (by his account) 1,700 feet (520m) into the cave, 200 feet (61m) further than those sections Ben had mapped, using a diver propulsion vehicle and smaller tanks to increase his range. [1], With the cave thoroughly searched, some divers began questioning whether Ben was there at all. CNN Sans & 2016 Cable News Network. )[11] His parents later defended him from those criticisms by seeing them as positive traits. That's practically a death sentence when you're scuba diving, so always be careful. [10] At some points, the passage narrows to 10 inches (25cm), requiring divers to remove their tanks, push them forward through the passage, and then twist their bodies to follow. Josh had no choice but to leave his brother and work his way out of the cave, where he called for help. Other than the two tanks, there was no sign of Ben: no dive mask, no fins, no wet suit, no body. Some theorise that something more sinister happened to Ben: that he was murdered. Neither of the divers had any obvious signs of trauma and both appeared to have the appropriate diving equipment. The grim mystery of where Ben is haunts the McDaniels family. In the 1990s, 13 divers perished in the cave. The McDaniels began considering the possibility that he had died as a result of foul play, and that his diving disappearance was staged to cover up a crime. "[1], In mid-August, four months into his Florida sojourn, Ben returned to Tennessee for a week. Deon Dreyer was a South African recreational scuba diver who died in Bushman's Hole, or also known as Boesmansgat cave, in South Africa's Northern Cape. I plan to make a longer video covering all of the different theories and all of the details I left out at a later time.I would like to also thank the YouTube Channels deepswim and dcainret for the fantastic footage of Vortex Spring I was able to use; including some of Ben and the initial recovery efforts.The footage used in this video come from the YouTube channels of:dcainret:https://www.youtube.com/user/dcainret/videosdeepswim:https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=deepswimVideo of Ben McDaniel inside of Vortex Spring:https://youtu.be/VbyoBlQtjNUVideo of the ROV:https://youtu.be/4QuxtejMUR0Songs: Emmit Fenn: CreepMaksym Bubyriev - Conspiracy Theory Short Version BEsther Abrami - No.8 Requiem\"Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for \"fair use\" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. "It's a really tight spot, but we've been able to get around him. [22], Kelly remained comatose, and was eventually placed in hospice care, where he died the following month. Two days before the Investigation Discovery cable channel series Disappeared aired a segment on Ben's case, a diver from Biloxi, Mississippi, Larry Higginbotham, died in the cavern at Vortex Spring. CNN . 3) Ed. He had first taken it up at the age of 15, practicing with his tanks in the family pool. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. For those who are willing to push boundaries to the absolute limits. It contains a warning to divers of the consequences of diving past that point: PREVENT YOUR DEATH. "[1], The McDaniels did what they could to help the search. [1][2], The cadaver dogs searched the woods around Vortex Spring without success. Sheriff's deputies were called about 12:20 p.m. Wednesday to what . Bookshelf [1], Captain Harry Hamilton, an investigator in Holmes County, assumed at first that a very large number of divers, both amateur and expert, would volunteer to search for and recover McDaniel's body. An official website of the United States government. In addition, he incurred a hefty tax debt (est. The death toll for all forms of diving decreased . Rescuers began a different approach, using air-powered tools to chip away at some of the rock surrounding John. Conclusion: But within minutes he realised he was stuck, with no room to turn around or even go backwards. A 10-year estimate of the incidence of decompression illness in a discrete group of recreational cave divers in Australia. It was risky work, and one diver said they had nearly died during the search. I also break down the different theories that are circulating around Ben's disappearance.The top 4 theories are:1. By that point John had been hanging upside down for more than eight hours. "There is just as much reason to look above the water for Ben's body as there was to look below it in the cave," she told the Commercial Appeal. BBC World Service. Multiple divers searched through the weekend, but did not find Ben. News media in the Panhandle and Memphis followed the search closely. National Library of Medicine Ben had found Paul unconscious in the family home and tried to revive him; he later became active in raising money for the foundation his parents established to support research into prevention and treatment of strokes. An experienced California diver who was helping with the exploration of the narrow underwater passageways that radiate from a well-known swimming hole in eastern New . [4] (Due to technical issues, it was unable to go any farther than the human divers had ventured. Two tanks known to belong to McDaniel were found near the entrance to the cave. [2], Cronin and fellow employee Eduardo Taran, on their way back from a dive themselves something they often did on Wednesdays after the shop closed saw Ben as he began descending, with his lights on and wearing a helmet, suggesting he was venturing into the cave. [19], There was no explicit evidence that Higginbotham was trying to find Ben and claim the reward. and transmitted securely. John Edward Jones, 26, was a medical student and experienced spelunker who went cave diving with a group of friends while visiting family in Utah for Thanksgiving in 2009. His family said the diver wasn't looking for Ben McDaniel, but cave divers are skeptical.The family steadily increased a reward to $30,000, which incensed the cave diving community because they thought it was recklessly encouraging inexperienced divers to . Around 7:30p.m., as the sun began to set, he went in again. The following is a list of the 136 identified recorded fatalities associated with recreational caving in the UK. Would you like email updates of new search results? On the 18th of August, 2010, Ben McDaniel dived into an underwater cave at Vortex Springs in Florida, never to be seen again. Based on these circumstances, police and dive shop employees assumed that he had never resurfaced and had in all probability drowned somewhere in the cave trying to get out. According to the BBC, local officials had given up . He had come to know Ben in the past couple of months. Last modified on Fri 14 Jul 2017 15.42 EDT. DAN Annual Diving Report 2019 Edition: A report on 2017 diving fatalities, injuries, and incidents [Internet]. The McDaniel family hired Lynn-Marie Carty, a private investigator. Ben must have gone deeper than anyone expected. [13] Experienced divers scoured the cave, investigating small crevices and fissures Ben might have entered in a panicked attempt to exit the cave, as his tanks ran low, a pattern found in other cave diving deaths. He slipped beneath the clear waters of Vortex Spring, with one goal in mind: to make a name for himself in the extreme world of cave diving. The cave steadily narrows, reaching a makeshift rebar gate with a chain and padlock, at a point almost 300 feet (91m) from the entrance. His diving career started back in 1995 in the Pacific Northwest that sparked a new passion for the world beneath the water's surface. The man escaped, and prosecutors later charged Kelly with assault and kidnapping in the incident. On the evening Ben disappeared, an inebriated Lowell showed up at the spring and asked if it was too late to go diving. Assisted by helicopters, they searched the swamps along the spring's outflow into Blue Creek and Sandy Creek to the Choctawhatchee River. John Edward Jones, 26, was a medical student and experienced spelunker who went cave diving with a group of friends while visiting family in Utah for Thanksgiving in 2009. June 23, 2022, 4:27 PM PDT. [2], McDaniel's dives at the site were regular enough that the dive shop employees and other frequent visitors came to know him. Man, 50, who sold guns to gangsters across Britain jailed for 19 years, Police accused of spending just ONE day a week fighting crime, Parole DENIED for Robert F. Kennedy's assassin Sirhan Sirhan, 78, Humans could have wings or tentacles 'in the next few decades', Elon Musk reveals Tesla's $10 trillion 'Master Plan 3', Wings and extra limbs in development after Third Thumb success, Sacked OnlyFans teacher left red-faced with gym blunder when bloke tried to help, Mouldy homes may be causing erectile dysfunction and shrinking testicles in men, Elle Brooke mocks OnlyFans rival Astrid Wett as moving like a Wii character, Shapps orders energy firms to hand Britons bills lifeline, Common flu may have originated from a fish 600 million years ago. For more information, please see our 7. The British cave diver who led the rescue of the Thai boys' soccer team and personally saved the captain, Duangpetch Promthep, has opened up about the heartbreaking death of the 17-year-old. Today, we're covering the true scary story of deep cave diver Dave Shaw. "Ben was fearless. It was "discovered" by Jim Bowden and Ann Kristovich on a reconnaissance trip made at the end of two weeks of exploration and surveying in the Nacimiento Santa Clara, a cave system at the . My gut feeling tells me someone closely involved with the last sighting of Mr. McDaniel knows more about his disappearance than they are letting on. By that time the McDaniels had also come to believe that, if he had not died in the cave, Ben had been murdered. 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