David Shaw (diver) - Last Dive

Last Dive

David Shaw died on 8 January 2005 while seeking to recover the body of Deon Dreyer, a South African diver who had himself died 10 years previously, and whose body Shaw had discovered at a depth of 270 metres (890 ft) in fresh water in Bushman's Hole, South Africa in October 2004.

Shaw recorded his dive with an underwater camera and this recording relayed valuable information that allowed researchers to determine that he suffered from an effort-independent expiratory flow which resulted in an inability to match ventilation to the demands of physical work at that great depth. Shaw ran into difficulties when he cut loose Dreyer's harness and the body unexpectedly began to float (Shaw had been advised by various experts that the body would remain negatively buoyant because the visible parts were reduced to the skeleton - however, within his wetsuit, Dreyer's corpse had turned into a soap-like substance called adipocere, which floats). Shaw had been working with both hands, and so had been resting his can light on the cave floor. The powerful underwater lights that cave divers use are connected by wires to heavy battery canisters, normally worn on the cave diver's waist, or sometimes attached to their tanks. Normally he would have wrapped the wire behind his neck, but was unable to do so. The lines from the body bag appear to have become entangled with the light head, and the physical effort of trying to free himself led to his death. The next day, both of the bodies floated up to near the surface as the dive team was retrieving their equipment.

The dive on which David Shaw died was the 333rd of his career. At the time of his world record setting dive, he had been diving for just over five years.