Diver Dave Shaw Died On Video…: This being the age of miniature cameras and reality TV, it’s no surprise that Dave Shaw was recording his attempted recovery of the remains of fellow diver Deon Dreyer at the bottom of the deadly cave known as Boesmansgat. The helmet-cam Shaw wore came up with his body Wednesday, and the footage shows his vain attempts to get Dreyer into a body bag and then his last minutes of life as he tried to return toward the surface. The most complete report is in the Cape Argus paper, and it has the grim details. TV cameraman Gordon Hiles, who outfitted Shaw with the helmet-cam, and diver Peter Herbst explain what’s on the tape:
“He gets to the bottom and moves towards Deon’s body and pulls out the specially made bodybag. He goes through the activity of getting the bag around the body. There’s a bit of silt that blocks the view for a while, then you see him rotating the body and realising (Dreyer’s) tanks are not jammed (in the bottom of the cave), they’re loose.
“So he attempts to get the bag over the tanks as well. Then at that point there’s no more activity and then Dave goes back to the shot line to start his ascent,” Hiles said.
‘Harder and harder and harder. Then there’s silence’
“But then exactly 26 minutes into the dive all activity stops and then his breathing as well.
“Nothing specific shows what kind of problem he was having, but the footage will be reviewed by various experts to try and determine exactly what is going on.”
Diver Peter Herbst, one of the two divers who recovered the bodies with police diver assistance on Wednesday, also saw the video footage. He said: “On the tape you can hear Dave breathing. Harder and harder and harder. Then there’s silence.
“It’s much too soon to say exactly what went wrong but, from the bit of footage I’ve just seen, it appears that Dave was working too hard.
“At first it looks like everything was going fine. He’d got to the body and he was working.
“From the footage it appears that Dave’s breathing then started to get worse and worse.
“It looks as if he ran out of time. It looks like he tried to give up and get out, but he got entangled in the cave line.
“He kept trying to cut the line, but he couldn’t. He was breathing faster and faster.”
Trouble at 270-plus meters is deadly trouble. Shaw’s dive equipment will be next up for scrutiny. But the more detail that emerges, the more impossible, and potentially lethal, Shaw’s original goal of recovering Dreyer’s body seems…
“What can I say? I lived to challenge myself, and I was sure I could pull it off…”
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