Boesmangat....

[Howard]

let's see a show of hands.... how many never saw this one coming?


One more body in the cave now. The 'rescuer' going for the body has now disappeared.

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_...1644655,00.html

Aussie cave diver disappears
08/01/2005 16:45 - (SA)

Boesmangat, Northern Cape - Police said on Saturday afternoon there was little chance of an Australian diver returning from the depths of the world's third deepest freshwater cave, where an operation to recover the remains of another diver has been called off.

When asked if there was a chance of Dave Shaw resurfacing from the depths of Boesmansgat, police diver Inspector Theo van Eeden shook his head and said: "Hy's weg (He's gone)."

Van Eeden had been waiting for Deon Dreyer's body to be passed up to him at 20m.

Shaw disappeared at 270m where he was supposed to secure the body and relay it past fellow divers to get it to the surface.

When he failed to return to his team-mate Don Shirley, waiting at 220m, Shirley descended to 250m to look for him.

He communicated to the surface through messages written on slates passed up a rope that Shaw's light had disappeared.

Vomiting and disorientated - symptoms of decompression illness - Shirley was forced to start a slow ascent on Saturday afternoon. At the surface he will immediately be placed in a recompression chamber.

By mid-afternoon Shirley was the only one of eight divers remaining in the water.

On October 28 last year, Shaw found Dreyer's remains at a depth of almost 270m.

Cylinders stuck in the mud

He was unable to take the body to the surface as Dreyer's cylinders were stuck in the mud.

In the past week, the diving team staged a "dress rehearsal" at the cave for Saturday's body recovery attempt.

This follows four weeks of preparing for what Don Shirley, the team's technical coordinator, described as a "small military operation".

Meanwhile Van Eeden said that in his 36 years as a diver, this was the first diving accident he had been associated with.

Shaw, an airline pilot for Cathay Pacific, has a wife and two children in Australia.

"I said from the beginning that you can't do work at that depth. This is a terrible story. It feels like I am dreaming," Van Eeden said.

When asked for a possible explanation for Shaw's disappearance, Van Eeden shook his head and said: "His rebreather should have packed up ... only he will know".

Rebreathers allow divers to stay under water for longer periods.

The divers involved are all "technical divers" and members of the International Association of Nitrox and Technical Divers.

Technical diving is an advanced form of scuba diving and uses special methods and equipment to explore environments and perform tasks beyond the range of recreational diving.

[Widiver_Paul]

This was unfortunate and I hope they don't send any more human beings down there to lose their lives too in recovering them.

Here's his webpage detailing the planning for recovery attempt of body #1 (http://www.deepcave.com/pages/6/index.htm)

This was admirable, but the outcome was predictable. I'm not even sure a surface supplied or saturation diver could have pulled this off.

I hope their families save other families the grief of having to risk another life.

On a side note, are there any RB's that have been configured with a FFM?
I'm not even sure if this would be possible due to dead air space, flow volume requirements and CO2 retention. At that depth it just seems convulsions are a fact of life, especially performing work.

[OFG-1]

This was admirable, but the outcome was predictable. I'm not even sure a surface supplied or saturation diver could have pulled this off.

Greetings. The next logical thing in this recovery is a ROV.

[JoeyP]

On a side note, are there any RB's that have been configured with a FFM?


One of my buddies outfitted his Megladon with a Kirby Morgan FFM. It has a rubber insert that fits around the mouthpiece and snaps in and out of the mask so you can go to OC if necessary. I believe the idea is to have multiple inserts so you can go to OC or whatever and still use the FFM.

[arnie]

Excellent dive for very experienced cavers/deep. I was in s africa from 1994 to 1996. Sheck Exley made a few dives in Boesmangat, I do have a video on the dive he made. Also Nuno Gomez has made a few dives there. Death is a part of life, we all go thru it. It is sad when fatilities occur especially to trained individuals. Arnie

[Carlos_Carvalho]

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=qw1105547041978B262

Cave divers' bodies recovered

January 12 2005 at 06:24PM

The bodies of Australian diver Dave Shaw and South African diver Deon Dreyer were recovered from the world's third deepest freshwater cave, Boesmansgat, in the Northern Cape on Wednesday.

Shaw went missing on Saturday while trying to recover the remains of Dreyer, a diver who blacked out and drowned in the cave while diving there in 1994.

Dreyer was 20 years old at the time. His body has been lying at a depth of 270m at the bottom of the cave.

Police spokesperson Inspector Louis van Vuuren told Sapa that both bodies had been brought to the surface.

"The bodies have been found and brought up. That is all I can say at this stage."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A press statement would be released later on Wednesday evening. - Sapa

[Neptuno]

hmm, I dont know what is the thing of doing that kind of recoveries if I ever die in a deep cave, I'll like to be leaved alone I guess...



http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=qw1105547041978B262

Cave divers' bodies recovered

January 12 2005 at 06:24PM

The bodies of Australian diver Dave Shaw and South African diver Deon Dreyer were recovered from the world's third deepest freshwater cave, Boesmansgat, in the Northern Cape on Wednesday.

Shaw went missing on Saturday while trying to recover the remains of Dreyer, a diver who blacked out and drowned in the cave while diving there in 1994.

Dreyer was 20 years old at the time. His body has been lying at a depth of 270m at the bottom of the cave.

Police spokesperson Inspector Louis van Vuuren told Sapa that both bodies had been brought to the surface.

"The bodies have been found and brought up. That is all I can say at this stage."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A press statement would be released later on Wednesday evening. - Sapa

[Genesis]

Reports from elsewhere are that when they brought up the lines intended to stage bottles and such, one of which was attached to the victim, the would-be-rescuer came up with him.

This would indicate that he knew he was toast and fouled himself intentionally in the line to insure that he would be recovered, much as Sheck did.

It also would tend to indicate that he essentially completed the task he set out to accomplish before he was screwed.

It's very sad that we lost another cave diver! My thoughts and prayers go out to Dave and his family. He was a very talented and experienced cave diver. Some might say what he did was crazy, but in the same since, lots of people think we are just as crazy for cave diving!

He was doing what explorers do, by pushing the limits. Last year Dave set a new civilian deep rebreather record on his Mk-15.5, which was fitted with Hammerhead electronics (the handsets were filled with mineral oil for deep dives). You can see a link to his web site, which has some very detailed dive reports and a video, at: http://cavediver.net/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=578

My thoughts and prayers also go out to Don Shirley for a speedy recovery.

See the article listed below! The following link http://www.theage.com.au has the same article, as a link, on the right side of the page. I got this information from Ian’s e-mail message on the Inspiration list.

Divers' bodies pulled from cave
January 13, 2005 - 8:04AM

Dave Shaw was attempting to retrieve the body of Deon Dreyer from the 270- metre deep Boesmangat cave.

The bodies of two divers - Australian Dave Shaw and South African Deon Dreyer - were recovered today from the world's third-deepest freshwater cave, news reports said.

Shaw disappeared Saturday while attempting to retrieve the body of Dreyer who lost consciousness and drowned at Boesmansgat in the Northern Cape in 1994.

Police spokesman Inspector Louis van Vuuren told the South African Press Association that both bodies had been brought to the surface.

Reports say police divers attempting to retrieve ropes discovered the bodies linked together and bouyant with Shaw's diving gear, 35 metres below the surface of the 270-metre deep cave.

Shaw, an airline pilot for Cathay Pacific and father of two, discovered Dreyer's body last year trapped in mud. He promised Dreyer's family that he would try to retrieve the body with the help of a team of divers, but failed to resurface Saturday.

Shaw had asked that no attempt be made to find him should something go wrong.

[FW]

Divers recover two bodies from Boesmansgat cave.

The bodies of divers David Shaw and Deon Dreyer have been successfully
recovered from Boesmansgat
cave, North Cape, South Africa. Shaw was lost in an earlier attempt to
recover Dreyer's body.

The international team of divers who assembled to recover Dreyer's
body at the beginning of
January were taking out their lines and equipment from the cave when
the two bodies came to the
surface.

Shaw, who was lost on the initial attempt to recover Dreyer's body,
appears to have become
entangled in the line that he was attaching to the body. Under normal
circumstances, an
experienced diver would have no trouble in cutting themself free, but
the effort required to do so
is likely to have proved excessive at 270m.

Shaw had earlier told the team not to attempt any dive to recover his
body if he did not return.

The bodies were spotted at a depth of 25m, entangled in line, having
been brought to the surface
as lines and diving equipment were being retrieved from the cave. A
post-mortem will now be
carried out on both by the South African authorities.

Dreyer was originally lost in 1990, and his remains lay undiscovered
until October 2004, when Shaw
came across the body while diving Boesmansgat to break the world depth
record for a rebreather
dive. He agreed to attempt the recovery after talking to Dreyer's
parents.

Dear Friends,

We have has SO many well wishes that it will be near impossible to thank everyone individually. I for one am so glad that Don has so many many friends out there!! Thank you for thinking of him.

An Update:

So far Don has had about 8 chamber treatments, starting on the Comax30 tables, and going through some table7's and 5's. It seems with every treatment he gets a bit better. He has also seen an ear specialist. It seems the small window in the inner ear had ruptured, but was already on the mend when he saw the Doctor. As a result of the rupture, about 50% fluid escaped - making him so disorientated and nauseous. He is due another ear torture today to see what the hyperbaric treatments are doing. This will decided if he would be having more treatments. (I personally think he is now addicted to the chamber).

Needless to say the phone has been ringing off the hook with journalists, and as he's still not too well, he has not been answering messages. If you have left one, he's asked me to please tell you he appreciates the call, and will eventually get back to you.

Feel free to phone me if you want any info. (But I must warn you; same goes for my phone ringing off the hook!)

From my side, I would like to draw your attention to the superb teams around Don.

The dive team - thank you for going beyond your profiles and limits to help my man. If you were not there, I shudder to think how he would have managed! Thank God that you were on rebreathers - it would not have been possible on open circuit.

The Modikwa rescue team - thank you for your rope work, and especially for pulling him out there in a record time. I bet you you will never be able to better that record again! J

Dr. Meintjies - we are SO glad you gave up a week of your precious 2 weeks annual leave to be there! You were needed! Please tell your lovely wife that we appreciate her giving you up for us!

Netcare911 - So glad you were there too! Thank you for your support.

The Police chamber attendants - what can I say. thank you for phoning me in between the chaos to let me know what's happening. Thank you for attending to Don in such a motherly fashion!

The Police - well, I have never seen such a team spirit! Thank you for the phone calls; thank you for the concerns. And a BIG thank you for the clearing of the dive equipment after (and for that matter before) the dive.

The individuals that just happened to be there and jumped in to help - I am sorry I do not know who you are, but thank you for helping. Paul - I know you; thank you!!

And last but not least by far, thank you all for your well wishes! Don really appreciates your calls. I started a list of names for him to know of each and every call!

I will do a brief write-up and put on the webpage about the dive. Just give me a few hours to get my head around it. www.technicaldivingafrica.com

Andre Shirley

Hi all,

Andre here...

I have updated the webpage with the dive. Please have a look at www.technicaldivingafrica.com or www.iantd.co.za

Andre for
Don Shirley
+27 (0) 82 650 2294
www.technicaldivingafrica.com

> Hi all,
>
> David Shaw - Forensic Findings
>
> I have loaded the forensic findings for David Shaw on the website.
> Have a look at www.iantd.co.za or www.technicaldivingafrica.com
>
> We place this here so that the armchair experts can see what really
> went wrong and not send out their (in)expert advice to any old
> journalist that wants to publish something! These findings are
> official.
>
> Andre Shirley
> IANTD Southern Africa
> +27 (0) 82 650 2279/94
> www.technicaldivingafrica.com