One of my friends died due to a faulty Buoyancy compensator. He was
250' down in Little Dismal Sink and had managed to connect
Little_dismal to Emerald forming the worlds longest mapped underwater
cave. They were breathing some weird mix of air. To exit the cave,
they must take off their tanks and push them through a constriction
while still breathing through the hose attached. Suddenly, There was a
cloud of silt and when it cleared they saw his light waaaaaaay above
them. They were in a dome that rose over 100' with the constriction at
the bottom. They slowly made their way up to him, pausing for the
decrease in pressure. He was alive and still breathing and was looking
around they say. However, they could not get him to go through the
constriction. They even tried tying his hose to him and somehow
pulling the tank through but nothing worked. They kept trying till
they were nearly out of air and had to leave him. When they got back
down with more air, he was dead of course. An autopsy later showed
that the rapid ascent had given him a brain embolism so he was sort of
brain dead when they were trying to get him through the constriction.
I probably have some of these details wrong because I am not a diver
but it was basically a bad BC. These guys were operating on the edge
of dive technology. A good friend and good caver lost.
Later, some of these same people pioneered the use of rebreathers for
this same cave system and they were later used in Wakulla and in
Mexico.
I think the obsession of cave diving is the same for any part of the
unknown. Finding some place no other human has ever seen gives you
chills and makes you feel closer to the almighty than anything I can
think of. Until a century ago, it was still possible to do this on
earths surface so exploration by sail drove the great age of
exploration. Today, there are very few unexplored places left on
earths surface so people who are obsessed with exploration have to some
extremes, like caves or the ocean depths or even space.
Dont get me started or I'll rant all day about this.