Caving Stories: Cave Diving

Santa Rosa, New Mexico. In March 1976 two student divers left an open-water class at the Blue Hole and swam into the cave at the bottom of it. The search for them took six weeks and nearly killed a police diver, and the city sealed the cave with a steel grate. Forty years later a survey team opened it, mapped it to 194 feet, and lost one of its own. Told from the published record.

Chapters

0:00 The third chamber

0:42 A blue eye in the desert

1:56 March 10, 1976

2:48 The search

4:18 The grate

4:58 Opening it

5:51 March 26, 2016

6:51 What the survey found

7:40 Five rules

8:58 What the record says

Sources

Wikipedia: Blue Hole (New Mexico): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Hole_(New_Mexico)

Route 66 News, "The little-known tragedy of the Blue Hole" (21 September 2010): https://www.route66news.com/2010/09/21/the-little-known-tragedy-of-the-blue-hole/

ADM Exploration Foundation: Santa Rosa Blue Hole expedition: http://www.admfoundation.org/projects/santarosa/santarosaexpedition.html

NBC News, "Divers hope to unlock secrets of underwater cave closed for years" (2013): https://www.nbcnews.com/sciencemain/divers-hope-unlock-secrets-underwater-cave-closed-years-8C11155362

Route 66 News, "Exploration diver dies in Santa Rosa's Blue Hole" (31 March 2016): https://www.route66news.com/2016/03/31/exploration-diver-dies-santa-rosas-blue-hole/

Wikipedia: Cave diving (the five rules; Sheck Exley, 1979): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_diving

Viking Dives, "The Great Grate Installation Project" (2024): https://vikingdives.com/the-great-grate-installation-project/

Full transcript:

https://pub-413c1fc5107e439dbec7a1f1c322ed45.r2.dev/diving/transcripts/ep01.vtt

Caving Stories on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@caving_stories

Follow the show in your podcast app to get each new episode as soon as it is out.

Produced by Caving Stories.

Zillah, Washington, 15 March 1997. Two divers hired by an irrigation district go into a flooded, pitch-dark siphon nearly half a mile long to hook cables to dumped cars. They tell the crew to call 911 if they are not back in an hour. Two volunteer rescue divers go in after them. All four die. Told from the Seattle Times and Spokesman-Review reports and the state's findings.

Chapters

0:00 Lights in the tunnel

0:43 The siphon

1:54 The job

2:48 One hour

3:45 The rescue

4:54 Draining it

5:42 The arithmetic

6:44 The findings

7:28 What the record says

Sources

Seattle Times, "3 Divers Killed In Zillah Irrigation-Canal Accident" (16 March 1997): https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/19970316/2529137/3-divers-killed-in-zillah-irrigation-canal-accident

Seattle Times, "Rescuers Of Divers Ran Out Of Air In Irrigation Tunnel" (17 March 1997): https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/19970317/2529219/rescuers-of-divers-ran-out-of-air-in-irrigation-tunnel----three-men-are-dead-lone-survivor-remains-in-a-coma

Seattle Times, "Canal Diving 'Intimidating': Two Bodies Are Recovered From Siphon" (18 March 1997): https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/19970318/2529386/canal-diving-intimidating----two-bodies-are-recovered-from-siphon

Seattle Times, "Mistakes Doomed Divers: Some Experts Blame Deaths On Bent Rules" (24 March 1997): https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/19970324/2530383/mistakes-doomed-divers----some-experts-blame-deaths-on-bent-rules

Spokesman-Review, "4 Divers Who Died Misjudged Oxygen" (7 May 1997): https://www.spokesman.com/stories/1997/may/07/4-divers-who-died-misjudged-oxygen/

Spokesman-Review, "Lack Of Proper Equipment, Training Cited In Diver Deaths" (27 June 1997): https://www.spokesman.com/stories/1997/jun/27/lack-of-proper-equipment-training-cited-in-diver/

Wikipedia: Cave diving (overhead environments; the five rules): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_diving

Full transcript:

https://pub-413c1fc5107e439dbec7a1f1c322ed45.r2.dev/diving/transcripts/ep02.vtt

Caving Stories on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@caving_stories

Follow the show in your podcast app to get each new episode as soon as it is out.

Produced by Caving Stories.

Near Mount Gambier, South Australia, 28 May 1973. Eight divers descend through a three-foot hole in a paddock into one of the largest flooded chambers in the country, with no guide line and no dive plan. At about 180 feet, four of them keep going. It takes more than ten months to bring the last of them back, and the accident changes cave diving in Australia. Told from the published record.

Chapters

0:00 Torches under the ceiling

0:47 A hole in a paddock

2:18 The party

3:30 The first dive

4:06 One hundred and eighty feet

5:24 What the survivors saw

6:15 Ten months

8:28 The coroner

9:31 What changed

10:48 The Shaft today

Sources

Wikipedia: 1973 Mount Gambier cave diving accident (with its references: W. B. Budd, "Police Diving: The Shaft", Australian Police, 1991; Lewis & Stace, Summary of Cave Diving Deaths in Australia, CDAA, 1977; P. Horne, South Australian Diving Fatalities 1950-1982): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Mount_Gambier_cave_diving_accident

Wikipedia: Cave diving (the five rules; nitrogen narcosis in caves): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_diving

Wikipedia: Nitrogen narcosis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_narcosis

Full transcript:

https://pub-413c1fc5107e439dbec7a1f1c322ed45.r2.dev/diving/transcripts/ep03.vtt

Caving Stories on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@caving_stories

Follow the show in your podcast app to get each new episode as soon as it is out.

Produced by Caving Stories.

Tamaulipas, Mexico, 6 April 1994. Sheck Exley, the man who wrote the rules of safe cave diving, and his partner Jim Bowden drop down two separate lines into Zacatón, a flooded sinkhole sounded at more than a thousand feet. Bowden turns at 925 feet and lives. Exley does not come back. Told from the Journal of Diving History, the account reprinted by IUCRR and the published record.

Chapters

0:00 Two lines in the dark

0:49 Peacock Springs

2:15 The rules

3:35 Deeper

5:01 Zacatón

6:23 Nine hundred and twenty-five feet

7:34 The stop at a hundred feet

8:07 The line

8:46 What the record says

Sources

Barbara J. Dwyer, "Homage to a Legend: Sheck Exley", The Journal of Diving History 113 (2022), reprinted by NSS-CDS: https://nsscds.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Sheck_Exley_JODH113.pdf

IUCRR, "Under Pressure" (account of the Zacatón dive): https://iucrr.org/accident-analysis/articles/under-pressure/

Wikipedia: Sheck Exley: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheck_Exley

Wikipedia: Zacatón: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zacat%C3%B3n

Wikipedia: Cave diving (the five rules; Basic Cave Diving: A Blueprint for Survival, 1979): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_diving

Full transcript:

https://pub-413c1fc5107e439dbec7a1f1c322ed45.r2.dev/diving/transcripts/ep04.vtt

Caving Stories on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@caving_stories

Follow the show in your podcast app to get each new episode as soon as it is out.

Produced by Caving Stories.

Plurdalen, Norway, 6 February 2014. Five Finnish divers set out to swim through a flooded cave under a mountain to a dry chamber on the other side. Two die at about 370 feet, one of them stuck in the narrowest part of the passage. The authorities call the recovery too dangerous. Six weeks later the survivors and their friends go back in themselves. Told from VG's reconstruction, Yle and the Finnish Divers' Federation report.

Chapters

0:00 One foot apart

0:41 A river inside a mountain

1:51 Five friends

2:57 The narrow passage

3:42 Four hundred minutes

4:33 The second team

5:25 Eleven hours

6:15 Too dangerous

6:56 The recovery

9:22 What the record says

Sources

VG, "The death dive" (reconstruction of the accident and the recovery, English edition, 2014): https://www.vg.no/spesial/2014/dodsdykket/index_eng.php

Finnish Divers' Federation (Sukeltajaliitto), Plura recovery operation report (2014): https://www.sukeltaja.fi/content/fi/40055/10832/51230/Raportti%2520Norjan%2520nosto-operaatiosta%2520-%2520Plura%2520recovery%2520operation%2520report

Yle News, on the Finnish divers' recovery operation (March 2014): https://yle.fi/a/3-7162425

Full transcript:

https://pub-413c1fc5107e439dbec7a1f1c322ed45.r2.dev/diving/transcripts/ep05.vtt

Caving Stories on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@caving_stories

Follow the show in your podcast app to get each new episode as soon as it is out.

Produced by Caving Stories.

Wimberley, Texas, 26 February 1984. Three divers go down into Jacob's Well, a spring in the bed of a creek where nine divers died between 1964 and 1984, to survey its lower chambers and to bring out a tank left behind in 1979. Two come back up. Told from the diver's own accident report and a local diver's account, both reprinted by the NSS Cave Diving Section in 1984.

Chapters

0:00 Where's Hayne?

0:43 A hole in a creek

1:56 Going down

3:20 Nineteen seventy-nine

4:01 February 26, 1984

5:02 The fifth chamber

6:03 The tape

6:59 Decompression

7:49 What the record says

Sources

NSS Cave Diving Section, Underwater Speleology vol. 11, no. 2-3 (1984): Danny Self, "Jacob's Well accident report", and Johnny Ripps, "Come dive Jacob's Well with me" (Wimberley View, 15 March 1984), both reprinted: https://nsscds.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/UWS_Vol_11_002.pdf

Wikipedia: Jacob's Well (Texas): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob%27s_Well_(Texas)

Wikipedia: Cave diving (the five rules; silt-out; guide lines): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_diving

Full transcript:

https://pub-413c1fc5107e439dbec7a1f1c322ed45.r2.dev/diving/transcripts/ep06.vtt

Caving Stories on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@caving_stories

Follow the show in your podcast app to get each new episode as soon as it is out.

Produced by Caving Stories.