# The Most Dangerous Quarry Dive Site on Earth

An episode of [Scary Interesting Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1705969819), 7 Oct 2026, 21 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/75604191/the_most_dangerous_quarry_dive_site_on_earth.mp3

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## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: This is Dorothy Quarry. At first glance, it looks like
[0:05] Speaker 1: a fairly ordinary lake surrounded by the beautiful Welsh countryside.
[0:10] Speaker 1: But this beauty is deceptive. This unassuming lake is actually
[0:14] Speaker 1: the flooded remains of an enormous slate quarry. Beneath the surface,
[0:18] Speaker 1: it plunges more than 100 meters over 300 feet, making
[0:21] Speaker 1: it the deepest body of water in the country. And
[0:25] Speaker 1: that depth is only part of what's down there. The
[0:27] Speaker 1: quarry is filled with old tunnels, cables, machinery, and abandoned
[0:31] Speaker 1: workings left behind from when it flooded. All of this
[0:35] Speaker 1: has made it incredibly appealing to divers, but also incredibly dangerous.
[0:40] Speaker 1: Over the years, this has led to some horrifying incidents.
[0:44] Speaker 1: As always, viewer discretion is strongly advised. Paula Blakemore stood
[0:59] Speaker 1: beside a body of water in North Wales on Sunday,
[1:01] Speaker 1: March 11th, 2007, preparing for yet another dive. For the
[1:05] Speaker 1: 43-year-old mother of three, there was something special about spending
[1:08] Speaker 1: a weekend underwater. In recent years, diving had become one
[1:11] Speaker 1: of the biggest parts of her life. Paula even became
[1:14] Speaker 1: an instructor herself, teaching divers in Majorca while steadily working
[1:17] Speaker 1: her way into more advanced forms of the sport. She
[1:20] Speaker 1: had a particular interest in deep breath diving, so she
[1:22] Speaker 1: worked toward and completed rebreather training, getting herself another step
[1:25] Speaker 1: closer to exploring sunken ships around the world. According to
[1:29] Speaker 1: one of her instructors who trained her, there were stretches
[1:31] Speaker 1: where Paula seemed to spend practically every weekend diving. This
[1:34] Speaker 1: particular weekend had an added purpose, though. Paula was training
[1:37] Speaker 1: for a charity dive connected with Guide Dogs for the Blind.
[1:41] Speaker 1: There to support her that day was her husband and
[1:43] Speaker 1: their three daughters, who all waited at the surface for
[1:45] Speaker 1: her to complete her practice dive. When she was suited up,
[1:47] Speaker 1: Paula slipped into the water with another 45-year-old who would
[1:50] Speaker 1: accompany her below the surface. As the dive got underway
[1:53] Speaker 1: and the two began descending, everything was going according to plan,
[1:56] Speaker 1: but just as they were settling in beneath the water,
[1:58] Speaker 1: something started to go wrong. Unbeknownst to either diver at
[2:02] Speaker 1: the time, a buoy on the surface began filling with water.
[2:05] Speaker 1: The buoy had a guide rope attached to it that
[2:07] Speaker 1: the two divers would use to orient themselves and eventually
[2:09] Speaker 1: lead them back to the surface. Now taking on water, though,
[2:12] Speaker 1: the buoy began to act like a weight instead of
[2:14] Speaker 1: providing the support it was intended for. While hanging onto
[2:17] Speaker 1: the rope, Paula began sinking faster than planned, and as
[2:20] Speaker 1: she went down, she got tangled in the line. This
[2:23] Speaker 1: was incredibly dangerous. Every second spent fighting against a rope
[2:26] Speaker 1: consumes more air and energy, and struggling can make the
[2:29] Speaker 1: situation infinitely worse. So knowing this, Paula's diving partner rushed
[2:33] Speaker 1: over to help her and began working to free her,
[2:35] Speaker 1: but the line wouldn't cooperate. What's worse, while trying to
[2:39] Speaker 1: untangle Paula, dive partner became caught in it himself. For
[2:42] Speaker 1: several minutes, Paula's partner managed to work his way free
[2:45] Speaker 1: of the line before continuing his attempt to get her
[2:47] Speaker 1: loose too. With all of this going on, however, he
[2:50] Speaker 1: had his own air supply to think about. Eventually, Paula's
[2:53] Speaker 1: partner reached the point where staying with her any longer
[2:55] Speaker 1: would threaten his own life. He had to leave her
[2:58] Speaker 1: hopelessly tangled in the rope that was meant to be
[3:00] Speaker 1: a lifeline for the two divers. Taking one last look
[3:03] Speaker 1: at Paula struggling to free herself, he broke away from
[3:06] Speaker 1: the line and began swimming upward. His ascent was no
[3:09] Speaker 1: ordinary one either. Because the two had gone quite deep,
[3:12] Speaker 1: his rise toward the surface required several decompression stops. These
[3:15] Speaker 1: stops were vital to prevent decompression sickness. Paula's partner was
[3:18] Speaker 1: so low in air after the fight with the rope, though,
[3:20] Speaker 1: that stopping before reaching the surface was no longer an option.
[3:24] Speaker 1: Even worse than that, though, the more immediate problem was
[3:26] Speaker 1: that Paula was still somewhere beneath the water, fighting for
[3:28] Speaker 1: her life. At first glance, there's nothing about Dorothy Quarry
[3:32] Speaker 1: that looks especially sinister or dangerous. Its waters are known
[3:36] Speaker 1: to be remarkably calm, like a small lake with no
[3:38] Speaker 1: swells or currents. On a clear, sunny day, the flooded
[3:41] Speaker 1: quarry looks like a nice place to swim. This calm
[3:44] Speaker 1: appearance is part of what makes Dorothy Quarry so appealing,
[3:47] Speaker 1: but if you're familiar with the channel, you know this
[3:49] Speaker 1: is often part of what makes it so deadly. The
[3:51] Speaker 1: quarry is located in North Wales, near the village of
[3:54] Speaker 1: Tally Sarn, and has become so popular in recent decades
[3:56] Speaker 1: as a diving destination, the divers have affectionately referred to
[3:59] Speaker 1: it simply as Doughty. What now looks like a large,
[4:02] Speaker 1: peaceful lake is actually the flooded remains of an enormous
[4:05] Speaker 1: slate quarry made up of several pits. The deepest sections
[4:09] Speaker 1: descend beyond 300 feet, or about 91 meters, and beneath
[4:12] Speaker 1: the surface, the quarry is anything but empty. Old industrial
[4:16] Speaker 1: structures still sit underwater, adding another layer of appeal to
[4:18] Speaker 1: the site. There are cranes, cables, tunnels, abandoned quarry workings,
[4:23] Speaker 1: and even a massive pile of crushed cars in one section.
[4:26] Speaker 1: In some areas, the floor falls away to depths far
[4:29] Speaker 1: beyond what ordinary recreational divers are trained to reach. Yet
[4:32] Speaker 1: from the shore, there's no way to tell how quickly
[4:34] Speaker 1: the bottom disappears beneath the water. This was the environment
[4:37] Speaker 1: that Paula entered in the spring of 2007. Her partner
[4:40] Speaker 1: made it back to the surface where he was treated
[4:42] Speaker 1: for decompression sickness and shock, but Paula had not. Emergency
[4:46] Speaker 1: services were notified and police immediately searched the quarry, sending
[4:49] Speaker 1: dive teams into the water again and again. It should
[4:53] Speaker 1: have been easy to locate Paula since she was last
[4:55] Speaker 1: known to be attached to the buoy line that was
[4:56] Speaker 1: still in the water. Dorothy Quarry is so deep though
[4:59] Speaker 1: that police divers couldn't safely investigate some of its lowest
[5:01] Speaker 1: sections themselves. so remotely operated underwater cameras were sometimes needed
[5:05] Speaker 1: to look beyond normal diving limits. It was an operation
[5:09] Speaker 1: that stretched across a handful of days, and in the
[5:11] Speaker 1: early hours of March 15th, search teams finally found Paula's
[5:14] Speaker 1: body in a deep section of the quarry known as
[5:16] Speaker 1: Red Hall. Her death was obviously a devastating blow to
[5:20] Speaker 1: her family and friends, but to the dive community, a
[5:22] Speaker 1: death at Dottie, while tragic, was not at all unusual.
[5:25] Speaker 1: As it turns out, Paula was the 22nd reported diver
[5:28] Speaker 1: to die there since 1994. By then, the quarry had
[5:32] Speaker 1: already developed a grim reputation throughout British diving circles. For years,
[5:36] Speaker 1: divers had continued coming despite repeated fatalities, warnings from major
[5:40] Speaker 1: diving organizations, and attempts by landowners to discourage access. To
[5:44] Speaker 1: understand why so many people were willing to take that risk,
[5:47] Speaker 1: it helps to understand what Dorothy was before anyone ever
[5:49] Speaker 1: thought of diving there. Sometime in the past, it was
[5:52] Speaker 1: just a large hole in the ground that generations of
[5:54] Speaker 1: quarry workers had spent decades working in. Dorothy Quarry began
[5:58] Speaker 1: taking shape in the early 1800s, as slate mining expanded
[6:01] Speaker 1: rapidly across North Wales. There had already been some small-scale
[6:05] Speaker 1: extraction in the area, but larger operations began during the 1820s.
[6:09] Speaker 1: Around 1829, businessman William Turner leased the site, and under
[6:13] Speaker 1: his control, within only a few years, it was already
[6:15] Speaker 1: generating significant profits. And as the operation grew, so did
[6:19] Speaker 1: its footprint. The original village of Tally Sarn stood close
[6:23] Speaker 1: to the expanded workings, and eventually the quarry began to
[6:25] Speaker 1: encroach on the settlement itself. Rather than halt the industrial
[6:29] Speaker 1: growth though, the village itself was relocated. Its old buildings
[6:32] Speaker 1: were left and abandoned, and the quarry continued spreading. Over time,
[6:36] Speaker 1: the site was renamed Dorothy, and eventually it became the
[6:38] Speaker 1: largest slate quarry in the surrounding district. In 1872, Dorothy
[6:43] Speaker 1: reached its recorded peak with more than 17,000 tons of
[6:46] Speaker 1: slate produced in a single year. As profitable and successful
[6:49] Speaker 1: as it was though, the quarry had a major problem
[6:51] Speaker 1: that never really went away in the form of water.
[6:54] Speaker 1: The slate deposits at Dorothy ran largely downward to the ground,
[6:57] Speaker 1: so instead of simply widening the excavation across the surface,
[7:00] Speaker 1: quarrymen had to follow the seams deeper and deeper underground.
[7:04] Speaker 1: This created massive pits with steep sides, but the deeper
[7:07] Speaker 1: workers went, the more they had to contend with groundwater.
[7:11] Speaker 1: Flooding was a very real challenge to the operation and
[7:13] Speaker 1: it was far more than just an inconvenience. In 1884,
[7:16] Speaker 1: several men drowned when one of the pits was engulfed
[7:18] Speaker 1: by water. Eleven years later, the nearby river was realigned
[7:22] Speaker 1: and deepened so that it flowed south of the quarry workings,
[7:25] Speaker 1: which helped reduce some of the flooding, but it never
[7:27] Speaker 1: eliminated the problem altogether. As Dorothy grew deeper, keeping water
[7:31] Speaker 1: out required constant pumping. Otherwise, groundwater would gradually reclaim areas
[7:35] Speaker 1: where it had spent generations excavating. Despite the constant expense
[7:39] Speaker 1: that pumping created though, Dorothy remained a major employer in
[7:42] Speaker 1: the region. By the 1930s, more than 350 men worked there,
[7:46] Speaker 1: but with World War II came a decline in production
[7:48] Speaker 1: that never fully recovered afterward. The quarry remained active for
[7:51] Speaker 1: several more decades, but in 1970, the operation finally shut
[7:55] Speaker 1: down for good. Once the quarry closed, there was no
[7:58] Speaker 1: longer any reason to keep paying to pump the water out,
[8:00] Speaker 1: so the machinery stopped and groundwater slowly began filling the
[8:03] Speaker 1: abandoned mine. As time went on, the same pits that
[8:06] Speaker 1: workers had spent decades trying to keep dry disappeared beneath
[8:09] Speaker 1: the rising water, Steep walls, tunnels, machinery, roads, and industrial
[8:14] Speaker 1: structures were submerged along with them. Eventually, the old quarry
[8:18] Speaker 1: became what visitors see today, a large artificial lake with
[8:21] Speaker 1: the deepest sections plunging hundreds of feet below the surface.
[8:25] Speaker 1: This marked the end of Dorothy for the slate industry,
[8:27] Speaker 1: but for divers, it created something entirely new as the
[8:30] Speaker 1: quarry became one of the most unusual inland dive sites
[8:33] Speaker 1: in Britain. It wasn't until the early 1990s that divers
[8:37] Speaker 1: began taking notice of the quarry. When they did, though,
[8:39] Speaker 1: what they found was almost ideal for people interested in
[8:42] Speaker 1: deeper and more technical diving. Instead of traveling offshore to
[8:45] Speaker 1: reach significant depths, they could enter the water from land
[8:48] Speaker 1: and descend into a flooded industrial landscape that dropped away dramatically.
[8:52] Speaker 1: Much of the old quarry remained exactly where workers left
[8:55] Speaker 1: it when slate production closed in 1970. Divers could explore
[8:59] Speaker 1: around submerged huts, cables, cranes, and sections of old quarry workings.
[9:03] Speaker 1: There were tunnels everywhere and vertical walls that disappeared into
[9:06] Speaker 1: darker water below. All this helped to make Dorothy feel
[9:09] Speaker 1: like an underwater playground of sorts for serious divers. Its depth, however,
[9:13] Speaker 1: was the major draw. Some sections bottomed out at 82
[9:17] Speaker 1: feet or 25 meters, while others descended to 131 feet
[9:21] Speaker 1: or 40 meters. Deepest areas reached an excess of 328
[9:25] Speaker 1: feet or 100 meters. That let advanced divers choose from
[9:29] Speaker 1: a range of depths depending on what they wanted to practice.
[9:32] Speaker 1: This was also particularly useful for people interested in deep
[9:35] Speaker 1: wreck diving, like Paula was. In winter, sea conditions often
[9:39] Speaker 1: made those dives more difficult or practically impossible, but Dorothy
[9:43] Speaker 1: offered an inland alternative for technical divers to keep practicing.
[9:46] Speaker 1: For that reason, the quarry became especially popular during the
[9:49] Speaker 1: colder months. And again, the water itself added to the appeal.
[9:53] Speaker 1: The quarry usually had no strong currents, and visibility could
[9:56] Speaker 1: be surprisingly good. Compared with diving in rough coastal water,
[10:00] Speaker 1: Dorothy offered a sense of predictability, but there was a
[10:02] Speaker 1: major problem. For much of its history as a dive site,
[10:05] Speaker 1: Dorothy was not operated as one. People went to the
[10:08] Speaker 1: water even though the landowner didn't want them there. No
[10:11] Speaker 1: formal dive center controlled access to the quarry to ensure
[10:14] Speaker 1: that everyone who arrived had the experience required for the
[10:16] Speaker 1: depth they intended to reach. This would eventually change after
[10:19] Speaker 1: a period of closure beginning in 2018 when an agreement
[10:22] Speaker 1: was reached allowing members of the North Wales Technical Divers
[10:25] Speaker 1: Club to use the quarry. The club was actually created
[10:28] Speaker 1: specifically to give qualified technical divers a way to continue
[10:31] Speaker 1: diving Dorothy, and the site reopened to them in 2021.
[10:34] Speaker 1: By then though, Dorothy had two very different reputations. Among
[10:39] Speaker 1: experienced divers, it was an extraordinary inland training ground filled
[10:42] Speaker 1: with depth, history, and unusual underwater sites. To everyone else, though,
[10:47] Speaker 1: it was becoming known as a deathtrap riddled with hazards.
[10:50] Speaker 1: The quarry's dangers begin with its extreme depths, but they
[10:53] Speaker 1: don't end there. During the winter, the water can drop
[10:56] Speaker 1: to around 37 degrees Fahrenheit, or 3 Celsius, both at
[10:59] Speaker 1: the surface and below. Even in the summer, when the
[11:02] Speaker 1: surface can be closer to 59 degrees Fahrenheit, or 15 Celsius,
[11:06] Speaker 1: the water becomes much colder as divers descend. So divers
[11:10] Speaker 1: need proper dry suits and adequate insulation, and regulators, so
[11:13] Speaker 1: the mouthpiece that delivers air to the diver, have to
[11:16] Speaker 1: operate reliably in low temperatures. There are actually anecdotal accounts
[11:20] Speaker 1: of divers at Dorothy using regulators not specially designed for
[11:23] Speaker 1: cold water, who end up spitting out chunks of ice
[11:25] Speaker 1: during their dives. Apparently, regulators could even freeze up and
[11:28] Speaker 1: stop working properly as well. And while it's strikingly clear
[11:32] Speaker 1: on most days, the water gets very dark further down,
[11:34] Speaker 1: where sunlight doesn't reach. This means that divers enter a
[11:38] Speaker 1: much darker environment filled with industrial remains, and those remains
[11:42] Speaker 1: are everywhere too. For experienced divers, again, these features are
[11:45] Speaker 1: part of the attraction, but they also create more ways
[11:47] Speaker 1: for something to go wrong. Paula's unfortunate death showed just
[11:51] Speaker 1: how serious something as simple as entanglement at depth can become.
[11:55] Speaker 1: Once she was caught in the line attached to her buoy,
[11:57] Speaker 1: even an experienced dive partner could not free her before
[12:00] Speaker 1: he had to save himself. And depth also makes every
[12:03] Speaker 1: other problem harder to solve. A minor equipment issue near
[12:06] Speaker 1: the surface can sometimes be corrected quickly. At greater depths,
[12:09] Speaker 1: the same problem may occur while a diver is cold,
[12:12] Speaker 1: carrying more complicated equipment, and already committed to a decompression schedule.
[12:16] Speaker 1: But with all of that said though, at the same time,
[12:19] Speaker 1: some experienced divers have argued that the quarry's reputation is
[12:22] Speaker 1: worse than the site deserves. In their view, many of
[12:25] Speaker 1: the deaths have more to do with poor equipment, inadequate maintenance,
[12:28] Speaker 1: limited knowledge, or divers attempting something beyond their actual level
[12:31] Speaker 1: of training. Dorothy may not force anyone to dive deep,
[12:34] Speaker 1: but it does make extreme depth unusually easy to reach.
[12:38] Speaker 1: There's nothing underwater telling someone they've gone too far, crossing
[12:41] Speaker 1: from an ordinary recreational dive into something much more serious.
[12:46] Speaker 1: A diver can just keep following the wall downward, and
[12:48] Speaker 1: that's why attitude has often been mentioned alongside other factors
[12:51] Speaker 1: as one of the quarry's biggest and most apparent dangers.
[12:55] Speaker 1: By the time Paula died there in 2007, Dorothy's reputation
[12:59] Speaker 1: had already been built on years of fatal accidents. Between
[13:02] Speaker 1: 1994 and 2004 alone, 21 divers died at the quarry.
[13:07] Speaker 1: It's a figure that's startling on its own, but the
[13:09] Speaker 1: deaths did not occur at a steady spread-out pace. At times,
[13:13] Speaker 1: they came in clusters. Like, for example, at the end
[13:16] Speaker 1: of 2001, three divers died at Dorothy within roughly a month,
[13:19] Speaker 1: and two of those deaths happened only 48 hours apart.
[13:23] Speaker 1: Another especially deadly stretch occurred between 2003 and 2004, when
[13:27] Speaker 1: six divers lost their lives during a single 12-month period.
[13:30] Speaker 1: and each new fatality raised the same question. Should people
[13:33] Speaker 1: still be allowed to dive there? There were even public
[13:36] Speaker 1: calls to close the quarry, and political pressure increased whenever
[13:39] Speaker 1: another cluster of deaths occurred, yet divers continued showing up.
[13:43] Speaker 1: Part of the problem was enforcement. For much of Dorothy's history,
[13:46] Speaker 1: people were entering private property and diving without any formal system.
[13:50] Speaker 1: Nobody knew exactly how many dives were taking place there.
[13:53] Speaker 1: There were no complete records showing how many people used
[13:55] Speaker 1: the quarry each year. and no comprehensive count of all
[13:58] Speaker 1: non-fatal accidents and close calls, meaning there was no accurate
[14:02] Speaker 1: way to calculate a true fatality rate. Experienced divers who
[14:05] Speaker 1: defended Dorothy could point out the thousands of dives that
[14:08] Speaker 1: may have taken place safely there, while critics could point
[14:11] Speaker 1: to the accumulation of bodies. Accurate numbers are a little
[14:14] Speaker 1: hard to come by, but most sources agree that around
[14:16] Speaker 1: 25 diving deaths have occurred at the quarry. But considering
[14:20] Speaker 1: Paula was the 22nd known death there in 2007, it
[14:23] Speaker 1: stands to reason that the overall death toll could be higher.
[14:26] Speaker 1: There also seems to be no single reoccurring mistake that
[14:29] Speaker 1: explained every death either. Some divers had problems with equipment,
[14:33] Speaker 1: lost control of their buoyancy, or became tangled in liner debris.
[14:36] Speaker 1: Others encountered trouble at extreme depth, and in certain cases,
[14:39] Speaker 1: panic transformed a manageable problem into a dangerous emergency. Sometimes,
[14:44] Speaker 1: the fatal chain of events began at depths that were
[14:46] Speaker 1: nowhere close to Dorothy's deepest point, and that's exactly what
[14:49] Speaker 1: happened to a man named Julian Kelsall. On August 31st, 2014,
[14:55] Speaker 1: the 42-year-old arrived at Dorothy Quarry with a group of divers.
[14:59] Speaker 1: His dive partner that day, Stephen, described Julian as experienced
[15:02] Speaker 1: and capable, although he also said Julian could sometimes be
[15:04] Speaker 1: a little casual about his equipment, which had caused him
[15:06] Speaker 1: problems in the past. When ready, Julian, Stephen, and several
[15:10] Speaker 1: other divers entered the water and swam toward a section
[15:12] Speaker 1: of the quarry that would lead them to an underwater
[15:14] Speaker 1: rock formation known as the Pinnacles. After swimming at the
[15:18] Speaker 1: surface for a while to get there, Julian turned to
[15:20] Speaker 1: Stephen and mentioned that he was feeling really tired, so
[15:23] Speaker 1: the group waited for about 10 minutes while Julian recovered,
[15:25] Speaker 1: Within about 10 minutes, Julian was starting to feel better
[15:28] Speaker 1: and decided to go ahead with their dive. A moment later,
[15:30] Speaker 1: he and Stephen began their descent into the quarry. Their
[15:34] Speaker 1: plan was to head toward the tunnels lying around 98
[15:36] Speaker 1: feet or 30 meters below the surface to explore what
[15:39] Speaker 1: might be inside. Around 72 feet or 22 meters, Julian's
[15:43] Speaker 1: regulator suddenly began free-flowing. A regulator is supposed to deliver
[15:48] Speaker 1: air only when a diver inhales. A free flow, on
[15:50] Speaker 1: the other hand, means air begins escaping continuously, almost like
[15:53] Speaker 1: a garden hose, rapidly draining the diver's supply. It also
[15:56] Speaker 1: makes it difficult to breathe from. Julian tried to deal
[15:59] Speaker 1: with it, but Stephen could see that something about the
[16:01] Speaker 1: predicament was worsening as the seconds ticked by. Julian went
[16:06] Speaker 1: from trying to fix his equipment to fighting with it
[16:08] Speaker 1: as he struggled to get the situation under control. This
[16:11] Speaker 1: was a surprising reaction to Stephen, who knew Julian to
[16:13] Speaker 1: be usually quite calm underwater. This time, however, Julian was
[16:17] Speaker 1: clearly beginning to panic. Julian then tried to reach for
[16:21] Speaker 1: a spare regulator, but he couldn't fit it properly, so
[16:23] Speaker 1: he went back to the malfunctioning regulator. Steven then gave
[16:26] Speaker 1: Julian his own backup from his own tanks, but Julian
[16:28] Speaker 1: wouldn't take it. Steven then pulled his own regulator out
[16:32] Speaker 1: of his mouth and tried handing it to his struggling partner,
[16:34] Speaker 1: but Julian turned that down too. He just continued breathing
[16:37] Speaker 1: rapidly from the free-flowing regulator while he kept struggling to
[16:40] Speaker 1: find a fix. At this point, Stephen tried another approach.
[16:44] Speaker 1: He attempted to inflate Julian's buoyancy device, hoping this would
[16:47] Speaker 1: send him upward towards the surface, but Julian kept interfering
[16:50] Speaker 1: with it as he fought with his equipment. This was
[16:53] Speaker 1: the moment Stephen realized the situation might be hopeless, because
[16:56] Speaker 1: he saw nothing but complete terror and panic in Julian's eyes.
[17:00] Speaker 1: Trained divers are taught in certain circumstances to maintain distance
[17:03] Speaker 1: between themselves and a panicked diver. They can do any
[17:06] Speaker 1: number of irrational things as they attempt to save themselves,
[17:09] Speaker 1: and that includes harming a diver that is trying to help.
[17:12] Speaker 1: It appeared that the situation had reached that point for Stephen,
[17:15] Speaker 1: so with one last look at Julian, he inflated his
[17:17] Speaker 1: buoyancy jacket and started to ascend to the surface. Just
[17:20] Speaker 1: like Paula's dive partner, Stephen didn't have the luxury of
[17:23] Speaker 1: making decompression stops on the way up. If Julian had
[17:26] Speaker 1: any chance of receiving help that would get him to
[17:28] Speaker 1: the surface alive, Stephen had to go up quickly. Moments
[17:31] Speaker 1: into his ascent, he could already feel symptoms that made
[17:33] Speaker 1: him worried about decompression sickness, but he pushed through the
[17:36] Speaker 1: pain so that someone might be able to help Julian
[17:38] Speaker 1: before he ran out of air. Once Stephen surfaced, he
[17:41] Speaker 1: explained what was happening and another diver, Paul, entered the
[17:44] Speaker 1: water with a buddy and went to look for Julian.
[17:46] Speaker 1: Paul descended much deeper than the original emergency and at
[17:50] Speaker 1: around 135 feet or 41 meters, he found Julian. By then,
[17:54] Speaker 1: he was unconscious. Paul tried to activate Julian's buoyancy jacket,
[17:58] Speaker 1: but it wouldn't inflate. Even with no other options and
[18:01] Speaker 1: help from other divers, they eventually managed to bring Julian
[18:03] Speaker 1: back to the surface. Once he was finally out of
[18:05] Speaker 1: the water, divers and paramedics worked to revive him before
[18:08] Speaker 1: he was flown by helicopter to a hospital. Julian, however,
[18:11] Speaker 1: would never regain consciousness, and he was pronounced dead at
[18:13] Speaker 1: the hospital. An inquest into his death revealed that the
[18:17] Speaker 1: equipment failure wasn't the only factor working against him. Julian
[18:21] Speaker 1: apparently had a severely enlarged liver, weighing somewhere around three
[18:23] Speaker 1: times what would normally be expected, and this was a
[18:26] Speaker 1: condition that he wasn't aware of. The coroner concluded that
[18:29] Speaker 1: his health problem had not directly caused the accident, but
[18:32] Speaker 1: it would have made Julian less able to handle the
[18:34] Speaker 1: physical stress once the emergency began. However, his official cause
[18:37] Speaker 1: of death was listed as drowning. About a decade earlier,
[18:41] Speaker 1: Jason William Dean's visits to Dorothy Quarry began when another
[18:44] Speaker 1: planned dive had been cancelled. On the morning of March 20th, 2004,
[18:48] Speaker 1: Jason and a group of other divers were scheduled to
[18:51] Speaker 1: dive in the Manai Strait, but bad weather forced them
[18:53] Speaker 1: to abandon the idea, so they changed plans and headed
[18:55] Speaker 1: to Dottie instead. Jason was 31 years old and working
[18:59] Speaker 1: as a civil engineer. He was also an avid diver,
[19:02] Speaker 1: and once at Dorothy, the group agreed on what sounded
[19:04] Speaker 1: like a fairly restrained dive. They'd spend about 30 minutes
[19:08] Speaker 1: in the water and reach a maximum depth of around
[19:10] Speaker 1: 60 feet or 18 meters around the pinnacles. Before heading down,
[19:14] Speaker 1: they'd split into two groups. Jason went with his friend Matthew,
[19:18] Speaker 1: while three others headed toward a different part of the
[19:19] Speaker 1: quarry together. Moments later, Jason and Matthew were descending, but
[19:23] Speaker 1: when they reached around 45 feet or 13 meters, Jason
[19:27] Speaker 1: unexpectedly signaled that he wanted to go back up for
[19:29] Speaker 1: some reason. The two divers began ascending, but almost immediately,
[19:33] Speaker 1: Matthew realized they were rising too quickly. He signaled for
[19:36] Speaker 1: Jason to slow down and stop, which he did, but strangely,
[19:39] Speaker 1: Jason's buoyancy began to fail. Instead of remaining in place,
[19:43] Speaker 1: he started sinking uncontrollably. Matthew went down after him, trying
[19:47] Speaker 1: to catch up, but Jason was already dropping. way too fast.
[19:52] Speaker 1: In situations where a diver is unexpectedly sinking, they can
[19:55] Speaker 1: sometimes release the weight belt that is worn to help
[19:57] Speaker 1: them descend. This would shed a significant amount of weight
[20:00] Speaker 1: and potentially reverse an uncontrolled descent, but Jason never did this. Instead,
[20:06] Speaker 1: he rapidly disappeared into Dorothy's dark depths far faster than
[20:09] Speaker 1: Matthew could keep up. With no other choice, Matthew headed
[20:13] Speaker 1: for the surface and emergency services were alerted to what
[20:16] Speaker 1: happened around 11.30 that morning. Once again, the quarry's depth,
[20:20] Speaker 1: temperature and underwater terrain complicated the recovery. Police eventually brought
[20:24] Speaker 1: in a specialized underwater robot to continue the search and
[20:27] Speaker 1: at around 4.30pm on March 21st, his body was finally found.
[20:32] Speaker 1: Jason was the seventh diver to lose his life at
[20:34] Speaker 1: the quarry in a little more than two years, and
[20:36] Speaker 1: the 21st to have died in the previous decade. It's
[20:39] Speaker 1: hard to imagine the fear that he might have experienced
[20:41] Speaker 1: as he sank uncontrollably to the bottom of the pit.

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