Don Shirley, who spent 13 hours under water in a fight for his life after he was unable to save his friend Dave Shaw on Saturday, has vowed to dive again.
On Tuesday morning he spoke for the first time as he headed out of Boesmansgat in the Northern Cape to Pretoria where he will be meeting a specialist after suffering decompression illness in the doomed dive.
"I've been receiving treatment every 12 hours," Shirley said.
"When I realised Dave was gone, it was sad but I had to accept it and get on with the job at hand, saving my own life."
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| 'Everyone was stunned but you get on with the job at hand. You only feel the loss later' |
Shaw had gone 271m into the world's third-deepest freshwater cave shortly after 6am on Saturday in an attempt to retrieve the body of Deon Dreyer, a 20-year-old diver who lost his life in the cave a decade earlier.
But Shaw also did not resurface.
At about 6am, Shaw and Shirley shook hands. "I'll see you soon," Shirley, the number-two diver told Shaw, who began his descent.
Shirley went down 13 minutes later.
"I was going to be there at 220m to accept Deon's body from Dave. But when I reached 150m I realised that there was a problem. Dave had a very strong light and I could see his light, but it was not moving. There were also no ascent bubbles and Dave should have been surfacing."
| The two doomed divers are likely to be lying next to each other at the bottom of Boesmansgat |
Shirley continued to descend but he didn't stop at the planned 220m - he went down in an attempt to save his friend, but at about 250m his breathing equipment failed and Shirley realised he had a battle ahead to save himself. He began to ascend.
"There was no time to think about Dave. I had to drive my rebreather manually, looking at schedules and gauges."
The first half of his journey to the surface was okay, but when he reached 50m he experienced severe problems.
"I started to pass out. I knew I was in trouble but at no time did I resign myself to the fact that I wasn't going to make it."
Eventually, at 7.30pm, Shirley made it to the surface where he was placed in a decompression chamber.
"I've spoken to the Dreyers and I've spoken to Dave's wife in Hong Kong. Obviously everyone is upset. At the time, when we realised Dave wasn't coming back, everyone was stunned but you get on with the job at hand. You only feel the loss later."
Shirley added he would not be able to go back into the water for six weeks.
"I'll definitely be back in the water. What we do is extreme and hazardous, but we accept the risk."
"It's very difficult to say what went wrong with Dave. It's just conjecture; we'll never really know. But what I do know is that Dave appeared to have got to Deon's body, because I saw his light was coming from that direction."
The two doomed divers are likely to be lying next to each other at the bottom of Boesmansgat.
Sapa reports that in keeping with Shaw's last wish his wife, Anne, has agreed that no attempt be made to recover his body.
- This article was originally published on page 4 of Pretoria News on January 12, 2005
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