Post #59 from Opie has report of incident in much more detail
http://www.cavediver.net/forum/showthread.php/36581-cave-diver-missing-in-TN/page6
" Here are the facts - Tn has some beautiful and unique caves, I was the original explorer to just past the first restriction. Life got in the way and new sites were found so I never took the time to go back. Weeks later Jason Richards extended my line to the air bell. About two years ago I made a dive along with a friend to the airball to check it out, with having much easier sites to explore I decided I would let Jason finish the exploration. Fast forward to present a couple weeks ago a group of brits have arrived in Tn. The group of about 20 consisted of mostly dry cavers with 3 cave divers. While the dry cavers were working on connecting 3 major cave systems to make the Mountain Eye systems over 100 mi long. The divers were looking for springs and sumps to explore. I took them around or gave them locations on stuff I have either explored that still had work left to do or virgin stuff that I haven't had time to go and check out. After going around looking at stuff they picked out some sites they wanted to push.Friday we ended up at the Mill pond , making a dive to the air bell, where they decided they would like to replace the #24 cave line that was in there due to the fear of a break or lost line with thick drygloves. The plan was put in place to reline the cave with polypro line to the air bell then to continue exploration. This was the point I told Josh he should take my suit and undergarment since I had to work the next week and wouldn't be making the dive and needing it.
Tuesday the plan was set in place to reline. Another local cave diver was set to go with them for surface support. On the way home from work I phone the surface support diver to check to see how much cave booty they have gotten aka Virgin passage appox 1500. No answer well no big deal as service is spotty in that area. About 10 mins later I received a call back excited for the news to only have my heart drop and tears come to my eyes when the words "Josh is missing" came from his voice. I quickly replied I'm 30 mins from home and 45 to the sites ill grab my kit and extra bottles and be there asap. Arriving at the site of which I was expecting to be bad viz since its a super slity cave with no traffic only 5 divers have seen the air bell at this point. After getting some information Diver 1 was laying new line in Diver 2 "Josh" was reeling in the #24 line from the surface to the airbell behind diver 1. Appox 250-275' in the were seperated where diver 1 turned the dive, making it to the surface where he expected diver 2 to be already taking kit off. When no sign of diver 2, diver 1 instantly went back in for a search. The search continued to 2200 hrs where the viz was totally blown making this situation possibly a multi rescue or recovery. Plan was made to return to my house to fill bottles give the silt time to clear and go back in. Keeping in mind we are certain he is in the air bell since the line he is reeling up has a tie off in the air bell and once he got ahead of diver 1 viz would have improved to a couple feet.
Some comments ask why was it so hard to find since its a one way in one way out passage and very short. Imagine finding virgin cave in zero viz and the viz I'm talking is not a small silt cloud, its you take a 3000 lumen primary and stick to your mask where you could barely get a faint glow. Now run line tie in to the eol at the polypro making searches, make tie offs, make sure you don't have line traps, then you have to navigate major restrictions, now you can get an idea this is a major problem.
Wednesday appox 0200 BCR contacts me and asked for a description of the site and situation. I gave them what they needed. Between diver 1 and diver 3 both brits then my self we agreed the dive would be best made with someone with no emotional attachment in case of the worse.0300 phone to Edd Sorenson we talked for a bit gave all information and plans were made for him and Mike Young to make the dive. 0600 arrived at site to see the viz had improved greatly to around 5-7'. Edd arrives and gets in the water while Mike is doing surface, 20 mins later we have our friend back. I can't give thanks to Edd or Mike enough for making the trip and the dive.
Now for the site comments. This site will remain closed for good its on private property thats been in the family for decades, this isn't a site where you would want to spend a few hours diving on the weekend to have fun we have much better sites in the area for that.From all the media attention we have received and none of it is good or help for the future, I'm almost certain this will affect the local cave exploration for years to come.When the head reported for Good Morning America says land owners should not allow cave diving on their property that makes for a real tough argument to the land owner that we are very capable diver to execute the dives we are asking to do. You dont hear on main stream media about finding miles of new cave or new species of inverts or find out where the water source is actually coming from to know how to improve our local water sources, you only hear of one incident out of 1000s of dives. So I'm not very hopeful that the local diving will continue as it was.
What I am most excited about is I now have a great story I can tell my kids and friends, I got the see my friend again and hug his neck, and I get to plan for exploration dives with all of them. All in all it was a scary few hours but a blessing from God that it all worked out."
