Deputies were alerted Wednesday afternoon after one . On August 20, 2010, a call went out to cave divers in the region surrounding Vortex Spring, Florida that a diver was missing, and in all likelihood, a body needed to be recovered from . In February 2014 two divers died at a depth of more than 100m in a huge cave system in Norway. For the college football player and coach, see, Scuba diver who disappeared during or after a cave dive, Cave diving beyond the locked gate at Vortex Springs, bacteria that would indicate the presence of a decomposing human body, "Theories about Collierville diver's disappearance swirl in vortex of unanswered questions", "When a diver goes missing, a deep cave is scene of a deeper mystery", "Collierville parents pull reward for missing diver", "Article on Ben McDaniel Vortex Springs Case", "What Happened to Ben McDaniel? All Rights Reserved. Everyone was relieved but then there was a heartbreaking twist. and transmitted securely. Two days later, when a worker at Vortex Spring noticed that Ben's truck was still in the parking lot, the Holmes County Sheriffs Office were called, and a recovery effort started. Lengthy searches have only located some anomalously placed and filled decompression tanks; many of the divers who took part in those searches believe that if McDaniel is indeed dead, his body is not in the cave as he was too large to enter its narrower passages. Absolutely. Last month, Larry Higginbotham, 43, of Biloxi, Miss., drowned inside the cave at Vortex. 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 father-of-one's tragic mistake was thinking he could squeeze into the same spaces as a six-foot man than he did when he was a lot younger and smaller. It is unknown at this time if all the equipment was working properly, the sheriffs office added. The Pair Have Been Involved in Other Rescues. Rescuers from the Utah County Sheriff's Office arrived and began a complicated extraction attempt, made worse by the fact that John was in "absolutely the worst spot in the cave". His only option was to keep moving forward, and exhaled the air from his chest so he could fit through the "L-shaped pinpoint" which was just 10 inches across and 18 inches high. Scuba diving is a safe sport. Diving Hyperb Med. It was risky work, and one diver said they had nearly died during the search. One rescuer was able to get close enough to pronounce him dead of cardiac arrest. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Over the forthcoming years, experienced divers continued to search the spring for any sign of Ben at the request of his parents who had offered a reward. We were able to hold his hand at some point.". Ben McDaniels parents believe two things: That their 30-year-old son dived into an underwater cave in Vortex Springin Florida on the 18th of August, 2010. DAN Annual Diving Report 2019 Edition: A report on 2017 diving fatalities, injuries, and incidents [Internet]. Yes, Thai Cave Rescue is based on the true story of the rescue of 12 Thai boys from youth soccer team the Wild Boars and their coach from the Tham Luang Cave, between June 23 and July 10, 2018. Unquenchable heroism and complex human relationships amid the perils of extreme sport. On the evening of 19 February, 1994, Gloria Ramirez was rushed to the emergency room 12-year-old Georgia Crews from Montverde, Florida, disappeared while walking to a nearby convenience store. 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. In fact, he owed the IRS $48, 861. 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. Things hadnt been going so well for Ben recently and he needed some time to clear his head. Assisted by helicopters, they searched the swamps along the spring's outflow into Blue Creek and Sandy Creek to the Choctawhatchee River. Two tanks known to belong to McDaniel were found near the entrance to the cave. Taran, who said he had let Ben into the cave despite knowing he lacked certification to dive in it, passed a lie detector test of his account. An experienced California diver who was helping with the exploration of the narrow underwater passageways that radiate from a well-known swimming hole . But this discovery struck some searchers as inconsistent with Ben's supposed intent to explore the cave he was technically not permitted to enter. About a week later concrete was poured into the main opening of the cave, sealing John inside forever. "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. But after more than 24 hours trapped upside down, the pressure and stress on his body became too much. Eduardo Taran, however, was an experienced diver as well as an employee at Vortex Spring. In the 1990s, 13 divers perished in the cave. They hoped to show it to the McDaniel family in the hopes of giving them a better understanding of the risks associated with cave diving, and "closure", as Heinerth put it. In 1987, a woman attempting to break into a home was shot dead. [2], Frustrated by the limitations the search had thus far encountered, and increasingly coming to believe that Ben's body was in an area of the cave no one had yet reached, the McDaniels offered a reward of $10,000, raised from money contributed at a benefit held on what would have been their son's 31st birthday, at the end of the year to anyone "brave" enough to go to those places and find it. [2], In March 2012, the McDaniels arranged for cadaver dogs to search the area of the springs again, but with no results. According to CaveDivers.com.au, 368 cave divers died between 1969 and 2007. At 46, Brod was a highly regarded diver, a gruff, opinionated man who as a boy in El Campo had swum along . 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 . Seeing a massive great white shark ambushing Ben and dragging him off mid-sentence makes for a terrifying jolt, but the subsequent grey blur could hardly be called chilling. [2], Ben's truck was still in the parking lot the next morning, but with many summer visitors coming to enjoy the site's many water-based recreational opportunities and picnic grounds in addition to diving, the employees said they were too busy to notice. He had first taken it up at the age of 15, practicing with his tanks in the family pool. 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. if Ben wanted to end his life this way, then why would he go back to his parents and leave a note thanking them for giving him a chance, because he could have just dealt himself a fatal blow in the city where he lived before, my theory is that Ben wanted to end his life with- because of debts or problems at work, as he wanted to become a diver and get consent to penetrate the same narrow passages as professional divers. 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. Cave diver David John Shaw (Dave Shaw) died more than 10 years later whilst attempting to retrieve Dreyer's cadaver. Former Firefighter Richard Stanton played a crucial role in the Tham Luang cave rescue in Thailand in 2018. Whether it's for sport or research reasons, cave diving is an extremely dangerous activity. Vortex Spring is a popular vacation destination hours away from the hustle and bustle of Orlando and Disney World. All contained normal air, not a specialized gas mix. 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. 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. "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. By that time the McDaniels had also come to believe that, if he had not died in the cave, Ben had been murdered. Dave Shaw was determined to bring this missing person's remains back to his family and set out on his final mission in 2005. Despite living on the coast during his sabbatical, he preferred to dive in fresh water, becoming a frequent visitor to Vortex Spring, located inland a short distance north of Ponce de Leon. appreciated. The employees of the dive shop were familiar with Ben McDaniel, and knew his reason for being on the premises was to dive the spring. But after more than 24 hours trapped upside down, the pressure and stress on his body became too much. "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. 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