The Most Gruesome Cave Diving Disaster in History

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Scary Interesting. In this video we're gonna go over three terrifying cave diving stories, and the final story features a gruesome condition unlike any other that's been covered on the channel so far, and it is horrifying. As always, viewer discretion is advised.

[intro music] Located in the small town of Southeast, New York sits the old Tilly Foster Iron Mine. The ore there was first discovered in 1810, and by the 1850s, hundreds of Italian, Irish, and Austrian immigrants found work there. The mine was later excavated with multiple horizontal tunnels beginning around 300 feet, or 91 meters below the surface.

And at its deepest, it reached 600 feet, or 183 meters. Between 1887 and 1889, the mine underwent a transformation, becoming what's known as an open-pit mine. This is exactly what it sounds like— material is mined from the surface on down, creating a large open pit in the process.

This brought notoriety as the Tilly Foster Iron Mine became the largest open-pit mine in the world, but little did anyone know at the time that this decision would have serious consequences. On November 29th, 1895, about 35 men, separated into two crews, were working at the very bottom when they heard a distinct and loud noise above them. Looking up, the miners were horrified by what they saw before all light from the surface was cut off.

Speeding toward them was an avalanche of rock, dirt, and debris. Heavy rains in the area in the preceding days weakened the rim of the pit, and all at once, it collapsed. The rockfall then slammed into the men—many of whom were frozen in fear by what they saw before they were thrust into what must have felt like eternal darkness.

As rock and dirt were raining on them with force, the men were completely buried. Many of them were then badly injured, while others died instantly or couldn't breathe beneath the weight of the fall. When the dust finally settled, there were 12 bodies that needed to be recovered, and a handful of other men who were injured and in need of medical attention.

Those who could immediately started digging the fallen men out from under tons of rock and dirt, and as the rescue effort got underway, men from the surface started to hurry down to the panic scene. And this caused a second rockfall that claimed yet another life, bringing the death toll to 13. When it finally seemed safe to do so, the rescue effort continued, and in the aftermath, some of the bodies that were uncovered were so badly mangled that it made identification extremely difficult.

The mine would remain in operation for two more years until it was clear that the company that owned it, couldn't financially recover from the disaster. Shortly after, the Tilly Foster Iron Mine was flooded by a nearby reservoir, submerging most of the pit and its tunnels well below the surface forever. This, however, wouldn't be the last the mine was heard from.

Between its closure in 1897 and the start of World War II in 1941, it served a dark purpose. It became a dumping ground for old cars, trucks, and other various items, but also bodies. Less than 70 miles north of New York City, the town of Southeast and the abandoned flooded mine were the perfect place for the mob when they wanted to make people and evidence disappear.

And this would continue for about 50 years until dumping anything in the pit was prohibited and heavily policed. As World War II got underway, the purpose of the mine started to shift when the US Navy began using it to test out diving equipment. And from then on, it became one of the diving community's best-kept secrets.

Few people were ever allowed to dive it because the mine was located on private property, and the owners were unwilling to accept liability if anything ever happened to a diver at the site. As time went on however, a team of three divers managed to convince the owners to let them undertake a series of dives that would allow them to explore and map it out. In fact, to even get permission from the owners, the divers signed legal waivers that absolved them from any responsibility should an accident occur at the site.

After four years of exploration and mapping, divers Bob and Dan arrived at the Tilly Foster Iron Mine on November 19th, 2017, with a much different mission than any of their previous dives. This time, they were in search of the body of a woman named Robin who was murdered in 1995. Much like the mob before him, the killer used the mine to dispose of the 17-year-old, and her body had yet to be recovered.

So just before noon that day, Bob suited up in a heated wetsuit and entered the water. At the surface, the water in the pit was around 70 degrees Fahrenheit, or 21 degrees Celsius, but just 10 feet, or 3 meters down, it dropped drastically to 42 degrees Fahrenheit, or 5 Celsius. This is because, right off the dock, the pit dropped to about 175 feet, or 53 meters deep.

Now, rather than dive together, Bob and Dan were gonna go into the mine separately. Bob was scheduled to go in at noon and spend 90 minutes searching for Robin at a depth of around 300 feet. Dan would then enter the water at 1 o'clock, with the two passing each other in the large pit somewhere along the way.

At the surface was also a support diver who would be called into service if necessary. This was a bit of a curious decision as the mine presented a number of dangers. As you might imagine, decades of dumping junk cars and whatever else into the pit, made for cloudy water, so visibility was an issue.

All that dumping also added a lot of hazards in the water that divers would have to negotiate. But either way, according to the plan, Bob disappeared into the water at noon and began his descent. Then, an hour later, Dan went in to perform his own 90-minute dive, but he never encountered Bob on his way down.

Around 3:50 that afternoon, Bob's girlfriend grew concerned. She knew he was diving that day, but he was supposed to be back at her place in Queens for a party, yet as it got underway, he still hadn't shown or called. So shortly afterward, a deputy was dispatched to the mine, and when he arrived, he saw two people milling around the pit banks.

As he walked toward them, they started to explain that Bob had entered the water around noon and that he was expected to surface around 1:30, but that never happened. By then, it was after 4pm, and the deputy asked why they hadn't called 911. Dan then responded they were just gonna come back the next day with some extra equipment to look for the missing diver.

And weirdly, for unknown reasons, neither Dan nor the support diver called emergency services when Bob had failed to return from his dive. Shortly after the deputy arrived at the scene and was briefed on the situation, state police, divers, and local fire departments arrived to begin to search for Bob. Because of how much danger the mine presented, however, they were gonna lean on technology.

Using advanced sonar equipment and a deep-water camera, the state police searched for Bob and finally got eyes on his lifeless body about 25 hours after he had gone beneath the surface. Then, with a cable, they were able to attach to his diving equipment, and about 20 first responders pulled his body up and out of the pit. When the camera had finally found him, it was initially clear what happened to Bob.

At the very bottom, he became completely tangled in wires and cables. Curiously, however, when the dive computer on his wrist was checked, Bob had run out of air around 12:34 that afternoon. Considering he was in the middle of a 90-minute dive, this was strange.

When Bob entered the water that day, either by an oversight or miscalculation of how much air he'd need, he did so with tanks that were only about halfway filled. So after an investigation, the incident was ruled a tragic accident, and police theorized that Bob became disoriented in the pitch-blackness of the bottom and somehow ended up among the tangle of cables. When this occurred, he likely panicked, which only served to tie him up even more and increase his breathing rate.

This then caused him to run out of air more quickly than expected. So, it's unclear if the amount of gas he entered the water with was ever gonna be enough for him that day, even if things had gone according to plan. Along the picturesque coastline of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula sits one of the world's longest, most extensive, and most complex cave systems.

This system is called Sistema Sac Actun, and it has about 228 total miles, or 368 kilometers of passages and chambers that have been mapped so far. This makes it the longest underwater system and the second longest cave system in the entire world behind Kentucky's Mammoth Cave. Because of this expansiveness, some of Earth's greatest mysteries and oldest connections to human history reside here.

Like, for example, rocks inside the system are known to be more than 250 million years old. There are also mastodon fossils that have been found here, and so have the remains of a human woman thought to be the oldest ever discovered in the Americas. The system itself was formed by the constant changes in sea level over millions of years, and while the entire peninsula has more than 7,000 sinkholes, also known as cenotes, a fair number of them are actually located in and around the Sac Actun system.

Many of these cenotes are quite deep, but the system itself averages only around 70 feet, or 21 meters in depth. Incredibly as well, despite its age, exploration of the Sac Actun system didn't really get started until the late 1980s, and its status as the longest underwater system in the world didn't come until a connection to another system was discovered in 2018. So, since most of its known history has been uncovered more recently, it's been a favorite system for cave divers looking for variety.

And with more than 220 cenotes as part of this system, which were created by roof collapses inside the cave system, there are plenty of known entrances to its many sections. In December of 2004, a group of 9 certified divers arrived in 2 vehicles just outside Cenote Kalimba along the Coba road. In terms of difficulty, this section has an average depth of around 33 feet, or 10 meters, with a moderate current that isn't much of a challenge to seasoned divers.

This area, as you might imagine though, is not without danger. It's a relatively small cave with jutting rock formations creating some tight squeezes, and those formations can be fragile. One wrong move can cause rock to break free from the walls, and depending on how severe, this can pin a diver in place or create what's known as a silt-out, which is when sediment becomes suspended in the water, greatly affecting overall visibility.

More than anything though, divers have to be careful of the various intersecting tunnels in the area. One corridor can look almost identical to another, so getting turned around and lost can happen easily if divers don't remain aware of where they are in relation to the exit. But in any case, the 9 divers that arrived on December 9th had been on several dives together in the preceding days, and they had developed communication and chemistry that had served them well to that point.

For their dive in Cenote Kalimba, they'd be split into two groups. Team A would be made up of 4 divers plus 1 guide, and the remaining 4 divers would form Team B. Their dive plan was to have Team A go in the water first.

They would cross several intersections before reaching another cenote, at which point, they would turn around and return to where they started. Team B was supposed to follow almost exactly the same dive plan, but they would enter just after Team A, and they would turn around just before reaching the second cenote. So at around 9 o'clock that morning, all 9 divers were suited up and in the water of Cenote Kalimba when Team A began their dive.

Following the permanent line, Team A dove to the very end where they encountered the first intersection. Before advancing any further, one of the divers pulled out a yellow plastic cookie marked number 1 and fixed it to the jump line across the intersection. This was to both let other divers know that the line was in use and to let Team B know this was the correct line to use.

After crossing the intersection, they were on a new permanent line, which we'll call line number 2. Further down line number 2, Team A reached another jump at another intersection. One side of this intersection led downstream to their goal, which was a cenote known as Cenote Box Chen.

So, using a spool of rope, one of the divers fixed it to the end of line 2 and connected it with the next permanent line which we'll call line number 3. As the diver was doing this, they also left cookie number 2 on it to indicate to other divers and the Team B. A little while earlier, and shortly after Team A descended into Cenote Kalimba, Team B began its dive.

After about 32 minutes of traveling through these small cave passages, they came across the first gap that connected line 1 and line 2. Once at this intersection, the team followed line 2 for about 65 feet before reaching the jump to line 3. The team then continued down line 3 until they reached the end of their dive as was planned before they entered the water, so they turned around and began making their way back to where they started.

When they reached cookie number 2 again, however, they made a huge mistake. They should have turned right, but instead, they turned left and followed line 2 for 25 minutes, covering about 1,400 feet, or 427 meters. And further compounding this, after making this wrong turn, there were directional markers pointing the way they were traveling, so they mistakenly believed they were heading toward their exit.

In reality, they were heading toward a completely different exit, which is what the markers were actually pointing to. Around this time, the team came upon a massive jump and came to the realization they had made some sort of mistake. At this other end of line two was a jump of about seventy feet to the permanent guideline leading to two other cenotes.

And still not quite realizing where they were, one of the divers pulled at a spool of rope and began to search for the next permanent line while the others remained at the end of line 2. Moments later, the diver returned to the group after being unsuccessful in finding the permanent lines, so they finally decided to turn back around the way they came. They were now in the midst of one of cave diving's greatest dangers, and it was clear to them as well that they were lost.

Even worse, they'd inadvertently added tons of time to their dive. Team B then continued back the way they came on line 2, and as they did, they split into pairs separated by a short distance. A few minutes later, at the intersection where they took a wrong turn, the lead pair discovered that the jump line marked with cookie number 2 was gone.

This was because, in their original plan, Team B was supposed to exit before Team A because they turned back before them. Thinking that was still the case, on their way out, Team A had removed the line they had placed, thinking they were the last ones in the cave. As all of these separate, confusing incidents began to pile up, so did the panic that Team B felt.

The lead pair from Team B were also running dangerously low on gas by then, as the dive was taking much longer than anticipated. Not only that, but the fear from getting lost had increased their individual respiration rates which burned through the reserve gas they had. This ended up becoming so critical that the two then started buddy breathing, because one diver got so low on air they were close to running out.

Around this time, Team A surfaced at Cenote Kalimba, and the guide was immediately concerned when they couldn't find members of Team B anywhere. Team A's dive had also taken 99 minutes to complete, and if Team B wasn't back soon, they knew they'd be in serious danger of running out of air. Then, moments later, the lead pair from Team B surfaced at Cenote Kalimba, with just a small amount of gas remaining between them.

When they were asked about where the other two were, the lead pair said they couldn't have been too far behind them since they could see their lights during the dive when they looked back. But, after waiting another little while, the second pair still hadn't reached Cenote Kalimba. So, grabbing some extra tanks, the guide and several divers from Team A reentered the water to search for the last two divers, but they wouldn't have to go too far to find them.

Just 250 feet from the safety of Cenote Kalimba, the two divers were discovered against the ceiling of the cave. Both were completely lifeless with their regulators floating alongside them. It was clear that both had drowned when their air pressure was checked and found to be zero.

One of the Team A divers then grabbed ahold of the first deceased diver from Team B and returned to the surface. The second diver's body was a bit more challenging to free due to a restriction in the area, but the guide and another diver from Team A were eventually able to recover the body. Police were then called, and the bodies, along with their dive equipment, were turned over as an investigation got underway.

In interviewing each of the divers, particularly the survivors from Team B, police uncovered the simple navigational error that led to the deaths of the rear pair. As the 12th largest European country by area, Romania has an incredibly diverse landscape within its borders. There is a beautiful mix of valleys, mountains, hills, and plains, in addition to lush green forests.

In fact, Romania is one of the most heavily forested countries on the continent, with about 27 percent of the country covered in dense greenery. And while not particularly known for them, Romania also has other natural wonders, like caves—both dry and underwater. Like, for example, in one of them, which has a name that translates to "the cave with bones", the oldest known human remains in Europe were located and dated to be around 40,000 years old.

Another cave system named Izbucul Tauz may lack that kind of history, but it's one that's still drawn speleologists from all over Europe for its crystal clear waters and decorative rock formations. It's located west of Transylvania in the Apuseni Mountains, and the entrance at the surface is little more than a green dot of water surrounded by high moss-covered cliff faces. The entire area around the small body of water is about as beautiful as you can imagine, especially when the forest leaves change color in fall.

Beneath the surface though is just as if not more gorgeous. The waters of the cave are a pristine bright blue, similar to what you'd find in the ocean, but much, much colder. Water temperatures in the cave tend to have around 39 to 43 degrees Fahrenheit, or 4 to 6 Celsius, no matter what time of year cave divers visit.

Exploration of the cave system didn't get underway until 1982, when a Hungarian diver dove into the cave and made it through the first length of underwater passage and came upon a large, dry air pocket. He then discovered a second submerged passage which he entered, and made it up to 154 feet, or 47 meters. Today, the cave has been mapped to a known depth of about 344 feet, or 105 meters, but at the start of the new millennium, the race was on among cave divers to be the first to go the deepest.

By 2001, a group of divers from Poland set the depth record at 260 feet, or 79 meters. But in 2002, another Polish diver was determined to best that mark. On October 4th, 2002, experienced and certified cave diver, 30-year-old Rafael Garski, entered Izbucul Tauz at around 2:45 in the afternoon.

For days leading up to this dive, the caving club he was a part of, enjoyed multiple dives in the system, and Rafael was already intimately familiar with it. His record dive that day would be a 2-hour expedition that he'd perform solo, although he'd have a support team on the surface should anything go wrong. And because his planned depth was in excess of 260 feet, Rafael had to carry several tanks with several different gas mixtures.

In fact, Rafael was carrying five different tanks. Two of them were filled with surface air, two were filled with trimix, and one was filled with argon. This last one filled with argon was crucial for something incredibly important, which we'll go over in just a second.

In any case, after entering the surface pool and signaling to the support team at the surface that he was gonna get his dive underway, he slipped under the water and to Izbucul Tauz. Two hours later at 4:45pm, Rafael was expected to be back at the surface, but when the time came, he still hadn't shown up. This wasn't all that out of the ordinary as dives can sometimes take longer than anticipated, but when he wasn't back by 5:45, the support team knew things had gone bad.

The Polish Alpine Association was the first organization the dive club members reached out to, but it would take another two days before they could Even arrive in Romania. This meant that if Rafael had any chance of surviving, the dive club would have to attempt the rescue themselves. Since there are air pockets inside the system, the hope was that Rafael might have had some sort of equipment malfunction and sought refuge in one.

The first attempt to reach him, however, didn't occur until the next day when another diver entered the cave system and descended to about 150 feet, or 45 meters. Around this depth, Rafael was expected to stash his two tanks full of surface air, but the diver couldn't find them anywhere. It seemed impossible that Rafael would take them to his intended depth, but where he put them was anyone's guess.

The next day, a second diver went into the cave in search of Rafael and made it to 256 feet, or 78 meters. There, lying on the floor of sedimentary rock was the lifeless body of Rafael. He hadn't made it into an air pocket after all.

So, full of sorrow, the diver approached his body to gauge how difficult it might be to bring him back to the surface. In a quick examination of the equipment, the diver tried to inflate the buoyancy device Rafael was wearing, but he had no luck. Then, sensing it was time for him to begin his journey back topside, he left Rafael where he was and returned with the tragic news of his passing.

3 days after the initial dive on October 7th, the Polish Alpine Association arrived on the scene, but it would be yet another day before another attempt to retrieve Rafael's body was made. Unfortunately, this first one failed, too. It wasn't until finally on October 9th, two divers made their way down to the body with a tank of compressed air to inflate Rafael's suit, which did the trick.

Several hours later, Rafael's body surfaced for the first time in 3 days. In a subsequent investigation, Rafael's equipment was meticulously examined to determine what could have gone wrong, and what they determined painted a picture of a horrifying end. Strangely, there were no signs at all where Rafael was found that would indicate that he panicked or even tried to hurry his way to safety.

Had he gotten frantic at all, the surest sign would have been silt floating in the water in the vicinity of his body, but when the first ever came across him, he reported everything being still and undisturbed. Whatever happened to Rafael, he must have been incapacitated to the point of not being able to help himself. When the investigators was complete, it was determined that a variety of factors came together to cause Rafael's death, and it was like a perfect storm of disaster.

Here is what was found. On his descent into the cave system, Rafael was wearing all five of the tanks he'd need for the dive. This extra weight helped him with the descent stage, but when he switched to the trimix at an appropriate depth, he was supposed to ditch the two surface air tanks and retrieve them on the way back up during his decompression stops.

It's not entirely clear why, but it's thought that Rafael decided not to remove the air tanks after all to aid his descent to the full depth to save energy. Under normal circumstances, this likely wouldn't have been a problem if not for the next issue he encountered. By that point, he was on his trimix because he was in a deeper section of the cave.

These tanks were also connected to a buoyancy vest he was wearing that could be inflated to assist with surfacing. This apparatus though was found to have a leak. Again, we can't say for certain that he noticed this because he can't give a firsthand account, but he likely did when he found it difficult to ascend.

His respiration rate upon noticing this likely increased, and this, combined with the leak, caused his trimix supply to dwindle. This also means that he couldn't inflate the vest properly— all of which was further compounded by the extra tanks he had with him. Now, this alone might seem like enough to cause Rafael's death, but there was one final thing that contributed, and the most likely scenario is terrifying.

As alluded to earlier, the argon tank Rafael had was crucial. This is because he was wearing what's known as a dry suit. Unlike a wetsuit, a dry suit creates a physical barrier between the diver's body and the water.

This suit also has a small amount of gas in it which helps to keep the diver warm. And argon is sometimes used because it has better thermal insulating properties than regular air. When the argon tank was examined after his death however, it was completely empty, and a leak was discovered.

Once this gas ran out, Rafael's window to save himself started to rapidly close because that's not the only point of the gas in the dry suit. When the argon gas tank was tapped out, it did two things. First, hypothermia likely began to set in, which would have caused Rafael uncontrollable shivering, confusion, drowsiness, and a loss of motor skills.

But second, and more importantly, as a diver descends in a dry suit, they have to add more gas to their suit because of the pressure at depth. This is because, the volume of gas in and at the surface gets compressed immensely as depth increases. This initial volume, if no more gas is added, eventually compresses to the point that it's like a vacuum seal like you might see with vacuum-sealed clothing.

When this occurred, it would have rendered Rafael's limbs almost completely immobile. And not only that, the suit would have tightened around him so much that he would have experienced intense pain from the squeeze. So, unable to inflate his buoyancy device, carrying excess weight, and completely helpless to do anything about it, Rafael sank like a stone and could do nothing but watch and wait.

At some point during this process, he did manage to switch from his trimix tanks to his surface air tanks, but at that kind of depth, severe narcosis was a certainty. Rafael likely spent his final moment in agony and fear before drifting into unconsciousness. His death was ultimately ruled an accident caused by hydrocution, otherwise known as cold water shock.

If you made it this far, thanks so much for watching. I've mentioned this before, but it's getting harder and harder to come by caving stories. So if you know of any that you haven't seen on the channel, I'd love to hear them, and you can submit them to the form in the description.

Also, thanks so much to all the divers who reached out about the third story. Your expertise was invaluable in ensuring the details were correct, at least I hope they were. Anyways, thanks again, and hopefully, I will see you in the next one.