All language subtitles for [English] The Most DANGEROUS Dive Site In Florida [DownSub.com]

This is the Eagle's Nest sinkhole in Florida.

From the surface, it's just an unremarkable,
uninviting, and algae-filled little pond.

But this view of it is deceptive.

At the bottom of this little pond
is a six-foot-wide vertical tube,

leading to a massive, pitch-black cave room
the size of an airplane hangar.

And that is just the beginning.

These are the Eagle's Nest cave dive disasters,
and why it's one of the most dangerous dive sites on Earth.

As always, viewer discretion is advised.

[intro music]

If you drive just an hour north of Tampa, Florida, you'll find
the Chassahowitzka Wildlife Management Area,

which covers about 24,000 acres
of forested wetland and sandhills.

The area is home to some unique wildlife,
like the Florida black bear,

and several species of endangered snakes—
but that's not all.

Nestled right in the middle of this massive reserve

is a small body of water that looks like a
near perfect circle from the sky.

Standing at sea level though, it's about as nondescript
and uninviting as you can imagine.

If you didn't know any better, you might swear the
algae-infested pool was a haven for alligators,

and taking just a few steps onto the boardwalk
that leads to the water

is usually enough to drive people off
thanks to mosquitoes and ticks.

This pool is known as Eagle's Nest
and is one of Florida's many sinkholes

which have developed over millions of years of erosion.

And while it may seem like an unremarkable pond
while standing on its banks,

those who know what they're looking at
see nothing but beauty and adventure.

It's for this reason that untold numbers of people
flock to it every year from all over the world.

That's because what lies below the surface
makes Eagle's Nest special.

It's a bit cliche at this point, you've probably heard
several caves referred to this way,

but according to the cave diving community,

Eagle's Nest is another of the
Mount Everest of their sport.

And much like the actual Mount Everest,
it's earned this reputation.

The pool itself is not unlike any other pond
as you descend the first 20 feet, or 6 meters.

At around the 20-foot mark though,
the pool's bottom forms a basin

with what looks like a large drain at the center.

In actuality, it's a 6-foot, or 2-meter wide vertical tunnel

that almost transports divers into
another world entirely.

At the end of the short tunnel is nothing
but expansive pitch-black darkness.

And that's because the tunnel ends
in a place called the ballroom.

This room is so big that it's been compared
to the size of an airplane hangar.

And cave divers who've experienced
the ballroom say that being inside it

is like being on a different planet
or even floating through outer space.

If that already wasn't incredible enough,
at the very bottom of this massive chamber

is a sloped debris pile where divers
can choose one of several tunnels to explore.

There are two downstream tunnels
and one upstream tunnel.

Before they make that choice however,
they're faced with a serious reality check.

It can be easy for divers to get caught up
in all there is to see inside Eagle's Nest,

but a sign was installed to shock visitors
to the cave back to Earth.

This sign is the infamous sign featuring a drawing of a
Grim Reaper standing over several fallen divers,

and the sign reads:
"Stop. Prevent your own death. Go no farther."

Below this impossible to miss warning are several
facts about just how dangerous Eagle's Nest can be.

And that goes for even the most experienced
and certified cave divers.

At the very minimum, divers who enter Eagle's Nest
are advised to be fully certified in cave diving,

hold a certification in trimix,
which is a gas mixture for deep dives,

and have a wealth of experience inside deep caves.

And even divers who meet all those specifications
are recommended to dive Eagle's Nest

for the first time with someone extremely
familiar with the cave.

And finally, the very bottom of the sign reads:

"There's nothing in this cave worth dying for."

So what is it about Eagle's Nest
that makes it such a dangerous dive,

yet simultaneously incredible enough
for people to keep entering?

With a mapped depth of 310 feet, or 95 meters,

it's not the deepest cave ever covered on the channel,

but it's definitely at or near the top
of the list in terms of the most challenging.

To date, at least 13 people have
lost their lives inside since 1981,

and while that might seem like an unimpressive number,

consider that a study that looked at cave diving
between 1985 and 2015,

which is a 30-year period, determined that
there were 161 American cave diving fatalities.

The two time periods we're talking about
don't line up perfectly,

but Eagle's Nest would still account for
8 percent of those deaths.

Or put another way, for every 11 cave deaths
that occurred in the US,

one of them occurred in the Eagle's Nest system,

despite there being hundreds of caves
to dive in across the US.

Like, for example, on Christmas Day in 2013,

Darrin and his son, Dillon, entered the
Eagle's Nest for a dive together.

The father and son had just received
new air tanks as Christmas gifts,

and they were eager to try them out.

Unfortunately, as far as fitting the requirements,
while Darrin was fully certified and experienced,

Dillon, who was only 15 years old, was not.

It's unknown what their dive plan was, but according
to the dive computers on their wrists,

they went as deep as 233 feet, or 71 meters.

This is a depth where most divers
would switch to a different gas

part of the way down to avoid nitrogen narcosis.

However, it seems that the father and son didn't,
and it's thought that as they descended,

they became more and more intoxicated by
the regular air under the immense pressure.

This then led them to losing track of time
and eventually becoming so low in air

that they didn't have enough to
make it back to the surface.

And when they realized they didn't have
enough air to make it back,

the father and son likely panicked, causing Dillon
to rapidly use up what was available in his tanks.

When those were depleted, Dillon then
switched to a second regulator

connected to a long hose on his father's tanks,

but with both of them by then breathing from
the same supply, this only exacerbated the situation.

It's believed that Darrin then lost
consciousness when the air ran out,

and upon noticing that the tanks were empty,
Dillon spit the regulator out of his mouth

and frantically tried to make it to the
surface on a breath hold.

Tragically, however, neither of them survived the incident.

Darrin's body was later found on the debris pile
at the bottom of the ballroom,

and Dillon was found floating not far from a spare
set of tanks they'd stashed on the way down.

And this isn't the only time something like this
has happened here.

A similar incident was actually the first
recorded tragedy at Eagle's Nest.

In December of 1981, 29-year-old Terri
and her husband, Larry, came to the sinkhole

and were all inside one of the tunnels
with three other divers.

The dive they performed that day was one the couple
had performed without incident several times before,

but as Terri held onto Larry's leg while they were
heading through a tunnel, she suddenly let go.

A split second later, when Larry turned to look,
Terri was motionless in the water

with her regulator floating outside
of her mouth right beside her.

He then desperately tried to get
the regulator back into her mouth,

but he was unsuccessful, and eventually,
he lost his grip on her.

With not much other choice, he then left
his wife and shot back to the surface

where he found a man named Jim Bentz
taking photos of the surface pool.

Luckily, it just so happened that Jim was a
certified diving instructor and rescue diver,

so when he learned from Larry what was going on,

he quickly suited up, grabbed a single tank
of air, and descended into Eagle's Nest.

Jim, however, never resurfaced either.

When a rescue team later found him, he was
floating lifelessly, around 250 feet, or 76 meters.

In a further tragic twist of fate,
Jim's friends told the media

that he was considering giving up cave diving
over concerns about the sport's safety.

Reports also say that Terri, just like Darrin and Dillon,
was breathing regular air

despite being well below 200 feet, or 61 meters.

It's believed Terri and Jim both suffered debilitating
bouts of nitrogen narcosis that led to their deaths.

These incidents bring up yet another issue
that can occur inside Eagle's Nest,

and any cave for that matter—and that's when divers
push themselves beyond their limits.

The sign at the top of the debris pile provides a clear
and sobering warning about this particular danger.

But for one reason or another, many divers either ignore it
or overestimate their abilities and experience.

In another incident on the evening of July 18th, 2018,

20-year-old Said arrived in the parking lot outside
Eagle's Nest with a handful of other divers.

This group of divers, however, was a bit different
and were known as free divers.

Just like cave and scuba divers, free divers
wear wetsuits, masks, and fins,

but they dive without air tanks of any kind.

In other words, each dive is performed
on a breath hold only.

In any case, for hours after their arrival,
members of the group would linger at the surface

as each of them performed their free dives,

which usually consisted of getting to
a specific depth as quickly as possible

with the help of some kind of weight or ballast.

Then, once at depth, this group did some brief exploring
before kicking their way back up to the surface.

It was getting late when Said was gonna
perform his last dive,

and for this one, he wanted to break his own personal
record by reaching the 80-foot, or 24-meter mark.

The rest of the group then watched as he
and another diver disappeared under the water

and dropped like stones, disappearing into
the darkness of the ballroom.

It's unclear just how long Said
could hold his breath for,

but amateur free divers can usually last
a few minutes underwater,

so their dives take a fraction of the time
cave divers spend underwater with tanks.

Either way, very quickly, it became clear
that something had gone terribly wrong

when Said didn't return to the surface.

Several members of the group then raced into
Eagle's Nest to try to locate and help him,

but he was nowhere to be found.

And because of the immense depth of the ballroom,
they couldn't swim any deeper on just a breath hold.

As this was happening at the same time,
others were calling for emergency help.

However, after rescue divers arrived at the scene,
it didn't take too long to find Said.

His lifeless body was discovered on the debris pile

about 150 feet, or 46 meters below the surface.

And unfortunately, based on the available information,
it's not entirely clear what went wrong in his dive.

And in fact, beyond that, even when
almost everything goes right,

Eagle's Nest has a way of claiming lives.

At 55 years old, Charles was one of four divers
who arrived at Eagle's Nest

on the morning of January 8th, 2017
to do some exploring.

One of the divers in the group experienced some sort
of equipment malfunction before they descended

and pulled himself from the dive as a result.

The other three, including Charles,
who had only been diving for two years

and had no cave experience, went ahead with their plan.

All three then descended through the vertical tunnel
into the ballroom without incident,

when suddenly, at around 100 feet, or 33 meters,
Charles went limp.

The other two then rushed to him to see if he was okay,
but he had somehow lost consciousness.

They immediately initiated their ascent,

but they also had to be careful not to go
too fast to avoid decompression sickness.

On the surface, as the diver who had to remain behind
was loading his gear into his car,

he heard the other surface and rushed to the pool
to see why they were so early.

He then managed to pull Charles from the water,
but whatever happened to him, it was already too late.

When medical services arrived,
he was pronounced dead at the scene,

and an autopsy showed he had suffered
a heart attack during the dive.

In a separate incident, Davin, a 53-year-old pilot
and spear fisherman,

came to Eagle's Nest with his good friend,
Gregg, on January 20th, 2018.

The two divers were only planning to go
to around the top of the ballroom,

which is around 70 feet, or 21 meters down, as that's
all their experience would allow for.

As they entered the seemingly endless
blackness of the ballroom,

Davin also suddenly went limp.

Davin was dead before emergency
medical help could arrive,

and authorities speculated that he also suffered
a heart attack during his dive.

Many years before Charles and Davin
passed away at Eagle's Nest,

29-year-old Brent had his first experience there
in August 1990.

He was a certified dive instructor who had just
wrapped up an introductory course in cave diving

when he entered Eagle's Nest.

His dive partners that day knew he was
inexperienced in caves, particularly deep caves,

but what they didn't know was that Brent
had been suffering blackouts underwater

for about a year leading up to that dive.

There are a number of reasons why someone
might blackout during a dive—

from holding your breath unnecessarily,
to nitrogen narcosis or oxygen toxicity,

but it's unclear what exactly was the cause
of Brent's trend of losing consciousness.

However, either way, at some point during
his Eagle's Nest dive,

he lost consciousness and then sank
to the bottom of the ballroom.

His body was eventually found at the
190-foot, or 60-meter mark.

Now, unlike many of the nearby springs in the area,
another thing that makes Eagle's Nest dangerous

is that it's not exactly known for always
offering crystal clear conditions.

Everything depends on how the weather has been
and how the current is running on any given day.

Most often, the water in Eagle's Nest
is somewhere around slightly cloudy,

but it can also become dark and muddy due to
organic coloring in the water called tannins.

And this is all on top of the ever-present threat
of accidentally reducing the visibility to zero

by disturbing the silt along the cave's walls.

To avoid this, cave divers will do their best
to keep their profile as trim as possible

and use techniques like a frog kick to move around,
but it can still happen anyway.

As cave diving became more popular and due to
the handful of deaths that occurred in Eagle's Nest

before the turn of the century, the Wildlife Refuge
actually banned diving there in 1999.

The cave diving community was upset about this

and immediately began lobbying for
Eagle's Nest to be reopened to them.

And it took quite a bit of convincing, but in 2003,
their efforts were successful,

and diving was once again allowed at the sinkhole.

As you might have expected though, not even a year later,
tragedy struck again on June 12, 2004,

when 36-year-old John and 44-year-old Craig showed up,
eager for the opportunity to dive Eagle's Nest.

Up to that point, John had been certified for 10 years,

and Craig earned his cave diving certification
just 2 years earlier.

Around 1 PM, they got their diving underway
with John using an underwater scooter.

This made moving around inside quite a bit faster.

Unfortunately, if the scooter isn't handled carefully,

the water disturbed by the propeller can cause a silt-out.

Sometime later, the two divers were expected
to be back at around 2:30,

but when they still hadn't arrived at 3:30,
their support team called 911.

Around 3 PM the following day,
John's body was found 1,000 feet,

or 305 meters inside one of the system's tunnels,
still wearing all of his equipment

but lacking any gas, and his main and secondary tanks.

It would take another two days for Craig to be found

about 290 feet, or 88 meters further inside the cave,
and completely tangled up in a rope.

It's believed that at some point in the dive,
the two found themselves in a silt-out,

and in a moment of panic, John dropped his scooter
and grabbed the guideline.

Horrifyingly though, it's thought that either due
to panic or the lack of a directional marker,

John then followed the line in the
opposite direction of the exit.

This mistake, while disoriented, caused him
to eventually run out of air entirely.

Craig likely made a similar error,
but then as he followed the rope,

he came to an area where there was a jump in the line.

It seems that as he was attaching his own line
to make the jump, he got wrapped up in it,

and then around then, he ran out of gas completely
and died where he was found.

In another incident involving highly experienced
and properly certified divers,

Patrick, Chris, and Justin planned an extensive dive
at Eagle's Nest for October 16th, 2016.

Patrick and Chris were the most experienced of the three,

and Justin was going along to explore
some of the shallower sections,

while the other two performed a much more advanced dive.

The day before their dive, the three stashed trimix,
decompression, and bailout tanks along the guidelines

so that when they arrived on the 16th,
they could just get right to diving.

Justin's main role that day was to dive
to a particular depth at 3 PM

and ensure that Patrick and Chris were
in the decompression stage of their dive.

The decompression stage, as many of you
are probably familiar with,

is another critical element of cave diving,

particularly for those reaching extreme depths
like you'll find in Eagle's Nest.

As a diver descends, nitrogen gas
is absorbed by the soft tissues,

but on ascent, that nitrogen comes back
into the bloodstream,

which carries it to the lungs so it can be
expelled while exhaling.

But crucially, this is a process that occurs slowly
and is related to the time and depth spent underwater.

And this is such an important process
because if the ascent is too quick,

the nitrogen will form bubbles in the blood,
which can cause a variety of issues.

In mild cases, it can cause joint and muscle pain,
headache and weakness,

but in more serious cases, it can lead
to paralysis or even death.

Sometime in the afternoon that day,
Patrick, Chris, and Justin descended together,

and when they reached Justin's max depth,
they stopped for a moment

and flashed each other the "okay" hand signal
before Patrick and Chris continued on.

Just like they planned, Justin came back to his max depth
at 3 o'clock after exploring for a while,

but when he looked below him, there was
no sign of his dive partners.

Every half hour, Justin returned to depth
to check on Patrick and Chris,

but when neither of them were seen by 6 o'clock,

Justin then called the Cave Country Dive Shop
and spoke with a rescue diver.

A rescue diver then rushed to Eagle's Nest
with the team's support divers on the way,

but things weren't in place to safely conduct a search
and rescue dive until around 11 o'clock that night.

Two rescue divers then entered Eagle's Nest

and took turns searching the upstream tunnels
once they were inside the ballroom.

After an extensive look around the
upstream corridors with finding nothing,

they turned and made their way through
the downstream tunnel.

However, when they surfaced around 3:30 in the morning,

they did so empty handed without finding Patrick or Chris.

Another pair of divers then took off from there,

entering one of the other downstream tunnels
toward an area known as the pit.

Almost immediately on the exit side of the pit,
they found the lifeless bodies of Patrick and Chris.

Based on what was observed when the bodies were found,

including data from their respective dive computers,
here is what is believed to have happened.

Around 43 minutes into their dive, the pair arrived at the pit
and spent a few moments outside it before entering,

likely to determine a plan to navigate
the tight restrictions there.

At around the 49-minute mark, they entered the restriction
but then backed out several minutes later.

They then waited again before a second attempt
was made at around 58 minutes,

but 3 minutes later, something strange occurred.

One of them then abandoned the
rebreather apparatus they were wearing.

A rebreather recycles exhaled gas,
turning it into breathable gas,

which can extend dive time and limit
the bubbles a diver produces.

At some point as well, the secondary long hose
on one of their air tanks was deployed,

and the pair began breathing from the same tank.

It's unclear of one of them suffered
some kind of mechanical issue,

but it was apparent at the scene that
one of them got stuck in the restriction,

and the other was attempting to free him.

Unfortunately, at around 85 minutes into the dive,
the two men ran out of gas

despite being in the vicinity of a bailout bottle of gas
they had stashed the day before.

And unfortunately, they never even made it
to their planned decompression stops.

So in the end, what is known is that it seems
that there were two experienced divers

who were at a restriction when something
occurred that required one of the divers

to remove his rebreather despite it functioning correctly.

They then began buddy-breathing
while trying to navigate the restriction,

but between whatever they were dealing with
and the tight cave passages,

they ran out of gas before making it to safety.

It's been suggested that one man may have gotten stuck
and the other man died trying to get him out.

As you may have noticed, many of the
incidents that occurred at Eagle's Nest

didn't occur during some crazy, deep technical dive.

There were a couple and probably some more
that aren't widely publicized,

but by and large, the incidents occurred
due to a variety of factors

that aren't entirely related to the cave itself.

In fact, in some cases, they were simply freak accidents.

So, much like the infamous Blue Hole of Dahab,

due to a lack of records, it's not entirely clear
if Eagle's Nest is uniquely dangerous,

or if there are simply more dives that occur there,
resulting in a higher raw number of deaths.

Either way, Eagle's Nest sinkhole remains open
to this day to the cave diving community.

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I will see you in the next one.