[1], Upon arrival, the sheriff's deputies sealed off the spring with crime-scene tape. Kelly said shortly afterwards that on that evening, a man he described as "wild-eyed" and apparently drunk showed up at the shop and asked if it was too late to dive; the possibility has been raised that this man, if he existed, may have been involved. official website and that any information you provide is encrypted A guest drove Kelly to his home in Ponce de Leon, helped Kelly shower and then placed a blanket over him and left Kelly to rest in the bathtub. Belgian Ben Reymenants runs a dive shop in Phuket. Ben went into Vortex Spring on August 18th, 2010 and was never seen or heard from again. In the morning, a different person came to Kelly's home, and realized his condition had worsened overnight. On August 20, 2010, Ben McDaniel (born April 15, 1980), of Memphis, Tennessee, United States, was reported missing after employees in the dive shop at Vortex Spring, north of Ponce de Leon, Florida, noticed that his pickup truck had remained in the shop's parking lot for the previous two days.McDaniel, who had been diving regularly at the spring while living in his parents' nearby beach house . He was given an IV drip and some food and water, and was even able to speak to his wife over a police radio. 2023 Cable News Network. I did a search for it but didn't find anything posted..the fact of not knowing if he ever came out of the cave or not is what I find most compelling. Zacaton is the deepest of five ceynotes located on a large ranch, El Rancho Asufrosa, in northeastern Mexico. Updated. Introduction: advertisement. "[1], In mid-August, four months into his Florida sojourn, Ben returned to Tennessee for a week. The McDaniels were called, and they drove to Florida, along with Greer, to observe from the shore. [2] That opinion, the Memphis Commercial Appeal later reported, was shared by posters on a scuba diving website, scubaboard.com, who had also met Ben during trips to Vortex Spring. The man escaped, and prosecutors later charged Kelly with assault and kidnapping in the incident. Witnesses came forward to say they had encountered Ben on the evening of the 18th of August. As he watched Ben attempt to open the gate, he retrieved his own key and opened the gate, allowing Ben to swim though. [1], Shelby does not believe Ben had any intention of abandoning his life. By that time the McDaniels had also come to believe that, if he had not died in the cave, Ben had been murdered. While underwater, he discovered the body of missing Deon Dreyer, who had passed away in the cave ten years before Dave's dive. Very interesting. Josh had no choice but to leave his brother and work his way out of the cave, where he called for help. But within minutes he realised he was stuck, with no room to turn around or even go backwards. 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. He had come to know Ben in the past couple of months. The spring consists of a 200ft basin which leads to an underground cave system. "He was found near a shovel left near a restriction so small that no one could get through it," said Sorenson, who had pulled Higginbotham's body back through four tight restrictions. At the entrance to the cave is a sign depicting the Grim Reaper. Investigative documents detailing the events surrounding a diver's death at Roaring River State Park show that multiple factors likely contributed to the drowning deep inside a cave . [2], Ben was 6feet 1inch (185cm) tall and weighed 210 pounds (95kg), one inch (2.5cm) taller and 20 pounds (9.1kg) heavier than Sorenson. They either succumbed to disease and hunger, or were murdered in gas chambers or were shot and killed. MIAMI The former owners of a Florida Keys dive shop whose boat was in such poor condition that it capsized and sank, killing a tourist, pleaded guilty last week . Cadaver dogs alerted on the water surface, further supporting that theory. "He just got himself in a pinch and couldn't find his way back out", said one of the divers who recovered the body. I also break down the different theories that are circulating around Ben's disappearance.The top 4 theories are:1. Results: The site is secure. Cave divers usually place extra "air" tanks, needed for decompression, at points along their exit route so they can follow them out, and not only at the entrance to the cave. In February 2014 two divers died at a depth of more than 100m in a huge cave system in Norway. Emergency medical services responded to a call and he was admitted to a hospital in Pensacola. BBC World Service. That's right, the second most dangerous extreme sports by death rate statistics, cave diving. 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. 8600 Rockville Pike While investigating, she found some unsavoury characters associated with the Vortex Spring. [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. He called his mother on his cell phone, the last contact he had with his family. #cave #cavediving #cavestory #disappearance #disappeared #diving #accidentOn August 18th, 2010, 30-year-old open water diver, Ben McDaniel, was last seen diving in the underwater cave at Vortex Spring in Ponce de Leon, Florida. On Valentine's Day of 2000, 9-year-old Asha Degree packed her bags in the middle of On December, 24, 1945, a fire destroyed the Sodder family's home in Fayetteville, West Virginia, Dorothy was harassed relentlessly by a terrifying stalker who ultimately abducted and killed her. They never saw him again. John decided to try and find the formation known as the Birth Canal, an incredibly narrow vertical passage. . The oldest of three sons born to Shelby and Patty McDaniel, a wealthy couple who lived in Collierville, Tennessee, outside Memphis, he had returned to live with his parents after his marriage ended in divorce and his construction business failed, the latter leaving him with tax debts of almost $50,000 to the Internal Revenue Service and the state of Tennessee. "Due to the circumstances with his body being held the way it was and being wedged, it was most likely difficult to get a full deep breath," Sgt Cannon said. Paul was not being prescribed opiates. Careers. #cave #cavediving #cavestory #disappearance #disappeared #diving #accidentOn August 18th, 2010, 30-year-old open water diver, Ben McDaniel, was last seen div. Two other tanks, lacking regulators, were attached to the "talk box" in the outer cavern area, (Piano Room) where the talk box was located at the time. On November 24, the group ventured into the Nutty Putty Cave, a popular spelunking spot known for its tight twists, turns and crawls. On the evening Ben disappeared, an inebriated Lowell showed up at the spring and asked if it was too late to go diving. According to CaveDivers.com.au, 368 cave divers died between 1969 and 2007. Authorities in Florida are investigating the deaths of two cave divers at a wildlife park, the Hernando County Sheriff's Office said. . Reports of cave diving fatality cases occurring between 01 July 1985 and 30 June 2015 collected by Divers Alert Network were reviewed. Conclusion: and our One ex-navy diver, Saman Gunan, died in the cave last Friday. He inched his way into the Birth Canal head first, wiggling forward using his hips, stomachs and fingers. As the sun faded on the 19 th of August, 2010, Ben walked down the narrow dock and slipped in the clear, warm, water of Vortex Spring. Jim Donaldson, a partner and manager at Big Blue Diving, a Koh Tao dive school, estimates that there were just six dive shops on the eight-square-mile island in 2000, a year after he arrived . John's brother Josh was the first to find him, and tried pulling at his calves but was unsuccessful. Three tanks believed to belong to Ben were recovered. Diving instruction is offered for all levels; experienced divers come for the underwater wildlife and the cavern, which begins 58 feet (18m) below the surface. THERES NOTHING WORTH DYING FOR it ominously reads. And a lot of times you become catatonic and just sit . 2012;58:57-79. doi: 10.1159/000338582. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. They were eventually able to partially free him using a rope-pulley system. Rescue efforts were due to get underway on June 24 with local British diver Vern Unsworth going alone. Cadaver dogs picked up a scent along the bank of the spring as well as one in the water but when county health departments sampled the water, they found no indication of a spike in bacteria consistent with decomposition. He was descending down towards the cave which starts 300 feet from the cavern. In 1991, an experienced cave diver named Parker Turner and his diving partner Bill Gavin were mapping caves in Indian Springs, a cavernous fresh water spring in the Florida Panhandle. A few years ago there was a famous cave diving death, the disappearance of Ben McDaniel in Vortex Springs. He followed his passions. "He's not in great shape physically, there's a lot of pressure on his upper body and back but he's been amazingly resilient and he has incredibly high spirits under the circumstances," Sgt Spencer Cannon said at the time. By Johnny Diaz. 2013 Mar-Apr;20(2):101-6. doi: 10.1111/jtm.12011. This forum is for the discussion of diving Accidents and Incidents and has. 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 juveniles believed the discussion was in regards to going back down into the cave and whether or not they had enough air in their tanks to complete their dive, the sheriffs office added. 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. 2 Coincidentally, Lowell died under suspicious circumstances two years after Ben disappeared. After resurfacing he filled his tanks at the dive shop, a transaction recorded on security cameras (it is not known what he filled those tanks with). "The last place I searched was pristine, without a mark that a diver had been there. Police assigned divers searched for Ben for days. Ben's tanks, wet suit and other diving equipment were not present and there were no signs of a struggle near his truck or anywhere else he could have been. Cave divers enter an inherently dangerous environment that often includes little visibility, maze-like passageways and a ceiling of rock that prevents a direct ascent to the surface in the event of a problem. October 23, 2022 7:16 pm. Vortex Spring is a popular vacation destination hours away from the hustle and bustle of Orlando and Disney World. An official website of the United States government. HHS Vulnerability Disclosure, Help However, not only did skilled and experienced divers . Equipment failure and training are rarely an issue for experienced divers, while insufficient training is the most . "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.". He told them he was working on getting certified as an instructor so he could find a job and that he was researching cave diving with an eye toward getting that certification as well. One rescuer was able to get close enough to pronounce him dead of cardiac arrest. A decades-old mystery surrounding the death of a Florida cave diver has been solved by a simple experiment by three scientists in a lab at Florida State. Home Bizarre Bizarre and Creepy Events The Missing Diver Ben McDaniel. There were no marks on the limestone where a divers helmet or tank would have scraped the cave ceiling. Multiple divers searched through the weekend, but did not find Ben. When the two men came back up, they talked with one another and then dove back in, authorities said. The cave diving death of Dave Shaw is a multilayered tragedy. The most common cause of death was asphyxia due to drowning, preceded by running out of breathing gas, usually after getting lost owing to a loss of visibility caused by suspended silt. On the weekend of August 1415, he returned to Florida, leaving behind a letter thanking his parents for the sabbatical and promising to look after them as they grew older. One of the divers is believed to have mentioned that he possibly had a leak in his tank.. PMC John decided to try and find the formation known as the Birth Canal, an incredibly narrow vertical passage. 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. They went through their very long decompression burdened by the "mental horror that just took place.". and transmitted securely. [5], The following month, amid increasing criticism, the McDaniels rescinded the reward offer. 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