Cave diver suffers alone for weeks | The Sterkfontein Cave Tragedy

[Music] cave diving is notoriously dangerous but when a simple 20-minute dive goes wrong an astonishing outcome will stun the entire search team this is the Fatal breakdown of the sturk Fontaine cave diving tragedy Nuno Gomez had been exploring an unmapped section of the sterk Fontaine cave system for the past couple months this was an incredible cave system in South Africa where many anthropological discoveries have been made including a 2.3 milliony old skeleton it consisted of mostly Dr cave areas but Nuno was interested in the wet cave system on this day September 29th 1984 he would

be leading a small group in an effort to lay a permanent guideline to the farthest point of the wet cave area of Milner Hall Peter verhel and Malcolm keeping would be assisting him in getting this line set by feeding him the line from the surface and being the surface monitors for this dive Nuno had done this exact dive twice over the past month so it was no surprise when everything went as planned to lay the permanent line cover covering the 396 ft distance from The Milner Lake entrance through a tight squeeze to a small air

pocket at the end of the main tunnel after the line was set he Peter and Malcolm would follow it along to the small air pocket at the end almost as a recreational dive considering its Simplicity the small room was only about 30 square ft like a short hallway just 3 ft wide and 10 ft long the men moved easily along the line passing dozens of small passages in the Swiss cheese infrastructure of the cave tunnel and finally popped up in the air pocket one after the other they enjoyed a brief discussion of how they might

be the first humans to stand exactly where ancient ancestors may have been millions of years before it was exciting and a bit inspiring for their Explorer Souls they each knew that there might be an artifact or bone along these paths which must have made them all feel like true explorers in Uncharted Territory this was the last conversation that the three men would ever have together they headed back out to The Milner Lake area just planning to follow the guideline out the relatively shallow tunnel it was only 13 ft deep so there wasn't a lot of

room to get away from the guideline and it was a direct route to the exit as Nuno led the men out he felt a tug on his fin from Malcolm he signaled that Peter was no longer behind him Nuno moved back to see if Peter had fallen behind he looked for a few moments then caught a glimpse of Peter's flashlight down one of the side tunnels Nuno was frankly annoyed but it was understandable the irresistible drive to take a quick look at what lay Beyond he signaled to Peter to follow him back to the guideline

and they continued on their way as they approached the squeeze to exit the tunnel Peter had disappeared again this time after a short look around the two men exited the tunnel to reemerge in the open Lake room they wanted to check if Peter had taken the other exit tunnel by chance but there was no sign of him Nuno and Malcolm turned around and re-entered the tunnel along the guide rope Nuno explored away from the line to side tunnels and areas he was aware of looking to see signs of Peter's light but this time there was

nothing over the next 4 hours Nuno and Malcolm searched back and forth along the path in main Lake to see if they could locate Peter they had started stirring up the silt with their many trips so visibility was reducing hour after hour although they were worried they still were confident that Peter was waiting it out in one of the many air pockets that were likely at the end of all of those side passages they just needed to figure out which one after using all of their air tanks they called for help in the late afternoon

the fire brigade divers came out but were unable to enter the cave due to lack of cave diving expertise Nuno had also called a fellow diver Craig Stevenson who had been in this very tunnel with him just weeks before Nuno and Craig used the new Air cylinders to try again to locate Peter eventually police divers showed up in the evening and took over the search Nuno and Malcolm were exhausted in hypothermic they had started this dive at 11:00 a.m. and it was now 2:00 in the morning the silted water had reduced visibility to zero the

police called off the search for the night and were now certain that it would simply be a body recovery from here on out Peter had been excited about the possibilities Beyond this main pathway as the three men started their return trip he was eager to take a quick peek at what might be just beyond his line of vision he turned into one of the large side tunnels just planning to illuminate the way with his flashlight and figure out how far it might go when Nuno grabbed his fin to bring him back he knew that was

the right thing to do it was thrilling to see the walls of a cave that might have had ancient occupants or led to a new Lake surface deep inside but no additional line had been set and they didn't have any rope with them to tie in for safety the pull was just too great for Peter as he passed passage after mysterious passage each full of incredible possibilities he finally turned off again and quickly proceeded down a new tunnel the formations in these dark water-filled caves made even simple paths seem like challenging mazes the orientation in

three dimensions added a difficulty Factor that's hard to explain because the flashlight could only illuminate a sliver of the path at a time there is no familiarity with which paths were taken previously nothing looked familiar as Peter tried to return to the guideline the movement in the narrow tunnels Disturbed the wall silt and made visibility low after testing many possible paths he saw the Silvery surface of water above him he pushed up and found himself in an incredible small room that no one else had ever seen before it was a thrilling relief to have the

safety of air and the opportunity to look around this new space he had tried everything he could in the water to locate the guideline but now he needed to just stay put and wait for his friends to find him as Peter waited he looked around the room with his flashlight there were a few narrow PA passages that seemed to lead off in different directions which as an expert dry caver he would be glad to explore later once they had set some additional guidelines for now he needed to just wait he pointed his light into the

water to signal to Nuno and Malcolm if they entered this section of the caves the initial excitement had started to wear off when no one emerged from the small Lake in front of him there were no sounds no air bubbles and no disturbances in the water surface he turned off his light to conserve the 30 minutes of battery power that remained while he thought about what to do the general rule at that time was to sit tight when you have an unlimited oxygen supply no point in diving in an unknown path with only 30 minutes

of air and light with the risk of not being able to find this room of air again Peter knew that his fellow divers couldn't be too far away and were probably looking for him that very minute after several hours had passed he knew that a full rescue attempt would probably be happening Nuno and Malcolm would have been out out of air and needed additional resources to find him Peter had tried to make noise by banging his tank on the rocks and flashing his light into the water his adrenaline had worn off and left him in

a state of complete exhaustion he finally fell asleep and thus lost all measure of time in the short term when he woke up he wouldn't know if 10 minutes had passed or 10 hours he was sitting in complete darkness with only the most limited knowledge of the cave he was in his light only had 1 hour total of battery life and half of that was used during his initial dive with Nuno and Malcolm so with No Light No food and no reference of Time Peter was not sure how long he might have to wait to

be discovered he had plenty of air and drinking water so the essential requirements for life were abundant it quickly occurred to him that at this point they may believe him to be drowned it was a horrible dilemma he had enough air in his tank to swim out the short distance to the exit if he only knew the path waiting continued to be the only option relying on the fact that they would continue searching until he was found after that first night of searching the police locked down the caves to Bar anyone from diving or caving

until they had completed their recovery Mission the tunnels were completely silted out and needed days to clear up since they had limited resources and were sure that it was a mission to recover a body they didn't come back for a week they then spent a day searching the bottom of the pathway to locate a body and the various tunnels that had yet to be explored there was absolutely no sign of Peter the following weekend they returned again the police had not allowed any civilians to join their dive Mission Nuno couldn't stand that they had not

asked for his help and was determined to get back into those caves and locate Peter for his family he just showed up at sturk Fontaine and offered his knowledge of the system to the police divers at that point Peter had been missing for 16 days even if he had found an air pocket he would have died from from hypothermia long ago in the wet tunnels Nuno knew that there were plenty of crevices and formations that could easily hide a body from Searchers and he had done all he could to help find Peter little did he

know that at that very moment Peter was inside fighting for his life as the hours and days passed Peter must have realized that his Rescuers were having trouble finding him he really had no way of judging whether one week had passed or three he was hungry and in complete darkness while his flashlight was working he had noticed the several passages that might lead to a dry exit in complete darkness now he ventured to the edges of his room and eventually followed a path nearly 120 ft away from the water's edge it ended up being just

a dead end of rock so Peter continued to stay by the water in hopes of a rescue team finally locating his little cave eventually he opened his flashlight and used the end cap as a cup as far as supplies go he was pretty limited he had a couple of dead batteries his flashlight body and a nearly full cylinder of air as time went on he likely wrestled with his decision to leave the guideline in the first place and then the decision not to go back in the water to search for the way out now he

was too weak from lack of food and sitting alone in the dark for weeks this devastating reality is true torture Studies have shown that people can hallucinate and start losing their sanity after just hours of complete silence and no visual stimulation Peter had been surviving day after day in an unknown State of Mind his body was deteriorating as his own muscle tissue was being used to fuel his body starvation is a traumatic State all on its own but combine that with the deprivation of light sound and social interaction and you can imagine the nightmare that

Peter was suffering the only somewhat reasonable measure of time would have been the growth of his beard his facial hair had grown substantially which might have given him some sort of reference about days or weeks passing by he was probably sleeping for most of the time because he had no food to fuel activity and no light to initiate wakeful periods the biology of his life was breaking down little by little Peter was barely hanging on after starving for weeks and losing 44 lbs of body weight the hopelessness is truly stunning with no way to Signal

anyone that you are in fact still alive and suffering hour by hour Peter collapsed next to the water knowing that his savior would come up in diving gear and rescue him from this tomb but Peter was wrong divers wouldn't find him but dry cavers would the police continued their weekend diving for 6 weeks and then finally called off the search with no result at this point they opened the dry caves again but kept the water portions closed to divers as soon as it was opened local speleological Association Volunteers started searching for a connection between the

dry caves and the Wet Ones Roger Ellis LED this group and Nuno joined them after just a few hours of searching a connection was found by Nuno himself he found a breakthrough section that revealed a watery surface connected to the dry caves this was astonishing news this was the first confirmation that the extensive dry cave system did in fact connect with the water filled tunnels other volunteers found a set of footprints that led to a dead end of rock it was a completely unexpected finding and stirred everyone's hopes for locating Peter Roger Ellis came to

a new water connection and was stopped short by what he saw laying next to the water was the emaciated body of Peter verhil he had not drowned after all in fact he lived for an astonishing 3 to four weeks his facial hair had developed into a beard and he had clearly lost more than 40 lb his new air tank was nearly full but it was completely banged up as they took stock of his situation they saw a message written next to Peter's body it simply said I love you cherl and Ma there is there's no

way to know exactly what Peter suffered during that time but he clearly fought to hang on to the very limits of the human body dozens of divers were all searching in this relatively small space but he just had no way to Signal The Rescuers one diver had come up in an opening just 100 ft from Peter's location if he had yelled loudly enough might they have been able to hear each other in these connected tunnels The Echoes of that question remain along with many other wh ifs if the dry caves had been left open this

search would have located a living Peter in just one day Peter's autopsy revealed that he had died of starvation after more than 3 weeks alone this was a devastating realization for Nuno despite the grizzly outcome of this dive Nuno went on to set several diving records and write a book about his many diving experiences including the tragic story of sterk Fontaine