Dave Shaw: The Full Story of the Bushman’s Hole Diving Incident
Before starting this article, I want to express my sympathy for all the victims, their families/friends, and everyone involved in this story.
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Although Scuba diving in its current state is very safe, I find it in the best interest of the industry to talk about diving incidents to avoid future incidents and stay safer. As I say: stay safe by avoiding other people's mistakes.
This Diving incident story is about a diver called Dave Shaw (or by his full name, David John Shaw, but you'll mainly see me call him Dave Shaw in this article as it is shorter and easier to write) trying to recover a body from a depth of 270m from Bushman's Hole (also called Boesmansgat) in South Africa, only to die during the dive. To give some context to this article, let's first talk about the dive site and the body.
Bushman's Hole/Boesmansgat
The reason I will use Bushman's Hole and Boesmansgat interchangeably in this article is because Boesmansgat is the south african name, which is where this dive site is located.
Boesmansgat is in the middle/northern point of South Africa, Some 600km southwest of Johannesburg. It is a sinkhole, that reaches a maximum depth of 283 meters (928 feet). Its deepest part was explored in 1996 by Nuno Gomes, who went to a depth of 282.6 meters (927 feet). While the surface (as you can see in the picture below) is inconspicuous and doesn't let anyone guess that anything interesting would be below, a few meters down, it opens up to an underwater cathedral of pristine water.
A significant challenge of this dive site is that it is at an altitude of over 1500 meters (~4900 feet). This means that the reduction of surface pressure creates a greater inert gas gradient and creates the necessity for longer decompression times. A decompression schedule at a depth of 283 meters at an altitude of 1500 meters is the same as a decompression schedule at a depth of 339 meters (1112 feet) at sea level.
A number of incidents have been attributed to Bushman's Hole:
- Eben Leyden, died in 1993 died at a depth of 60 meters (200 feet) due to a blackout.
- Deon Dreyer, in 1994, whose incident is detailed in the next paragraph.
- Dave Shaw, in 2005, whose incident we will talk about in the rest of this article.
If you want to read more about Bushman's Hole, you can read this article.
Deon Dreyer
Deon Dreyer, born on 7 August 1974 was raised in the town of Vereeniging in South Africa by his mother, Marie Dreyer. Deon's dad, Theo Dreyer was a radio salesman. Accounts from his family say that Deon was in love with all kinds of adventures, such as racing, hunting, and obviously, diving.
Deon, 20 years old at that time, was invited by a South Africa Cave Diving Association to assist another diver Nuno Gomes, descend to a depth of 150m in Bushman's Hole, or Boesmansgat. Deon asked permission to do it from his dad, who didn't think too much of it, being unfamiliar with diving and with the dive site. Deon's job was simply to act as a support diver for the whole operation. During one of the training/preparation dives, Deon lost consciousness at a depth of around 50 meters, probably due to oxygen toxicity or hypercapnia (a buildup of carbon dioxide in the blood), he sunk to the bottom of the sinkhole, at a depth of 270 meters.
Theo Dreyer hired a ROV from De Beers Mining company to search for Deon's body. They were however only able to locate his helmet, without signs of his body. After this incident, Deon Dreyer's story became very well known to divers diving Bushman's hole.
Making a big jump forward of 10 years in the future, Dave Shaw was completing a dive alongside his most trusted dive buddy, Don Shireley, to beat multiple depth records (Namely: Depth on a rebreather, depth in a cave on a rebreather, depth at altitude on a rebreather, depth running a line) at Boesmangat, when at the deepest point, they come across a body. After slowly ascending, completing all his decompression stops, and reaching the surface, he alerts his crew of what he saw. It doesn't take long: after some research and reading about the incidents of Bushman's hole, they figure out the body that he spotted was that of Deon Dreyer. The next step was clear for Dave and Don: They called Theo Dreyer, Deon's father, and promised him they would recover their child's body.
Dave shaw
David John Shaw, also known as Dave Shaw, was born on 20 July 1954 in Katanning, Australia. He lived a Christian life, Married to his wife Ann Shaw, and had two kids with her; Steven and Lisa Shaw.
Dave lived in Hong-Kong and worked as an airline pilot for Cathay Pacific. He was introduced to Scuba Diving by his son, and started with recreational diving but quickly advanced to more technical dives, such as wrecks and cave diving. He soon bought a rebreather, which allowed him to go deeper and for an extended period of time.
He started out with an AP Inspiration CCR, but as he wanted to go further and deeper, which this unit didn't allow him to, he bought an MK15.5 which he personalized with the Juergensen Marine Hammerhead electronics. Although he still used the AP Inspiration for shallower dives, the Mk15.5 was his choice for deeper and more challenging dives.
Don Shirley was Dave's usual dive buddy. Don was a technical diving instructor, teaching trimix, rebreather, and cave diving. He served in the British Army as a diving expedition supervisor. Although Don still teaches diving (he is based in Komati Springs, in South Africa), he is most famous for this story at Bushman's Hole.
The recovery
The organization for the operation was already well on the way, but it only started some months later, in January 2005. The recovery's first challenge was bringing all the required equipment down to Boesmansgat. The sinkhole is quite isolated and the operation required bulky pieces of equipment, such as tanks, rebreathers, compressors, a portable small hyperbaric chamber, etc...
Excluding the rebreathers, the total volume of gas in the operation included: 50 Helium tanks of 50L, 15 Oxygen tanks of 50L (for the decompression chamber), and 28 bailout stages, along the descent line at various depths.
Of course, Dave Shaw wouldn't be the only one going in the water, he would be joined by 7 other divers, at various depths, acting as relay points for Deon Dreyer's body. The divers were:
- Dave Shaw, the main recovery diver. He was supposed to go down to a depth of 270m to recover the body, the total planned decompression time for Dave was 12 hours.
- Don Shirley, a 48-year-old British diver, and the first relay point for the body. Don was supposed to be the second deepest diver of the whole operation, going to a depth of 220m and waiting for Dave to give him Deon's body. The total planned decompression time for Don was 10 hours.
- Mark Andrews, a 39-year-old British diver, waiting at a depth of 150m, expecting Don to bring him Deon's body and bring it to the next support diver. Mark's total planned decompression time was 5 hours.
- Dusan Stojakovic, 48 years old, working as with Mark as a buddy team. Dusan was also posted at 150m of depth and had a planned decompression time of 5 hours.
- Peter Herbst, staying at a depth of 120m, with a total planned decompression time of 3 hours.
- Lo Vingerling, a 60-year-old, in a buddy team with Peter. He was also planned to a maximum depth of 120m and a total decompression time of 3 hours.
- Stephen Sander, a 39-year-old police diver, was stationed at a depth of 80m waiting on Peter and Lo. He had a maximum planned decompression time of 2 hours.
- Truwin Laas, 31 years old, was the shallowest diver on the mission: he was supposed to stay at a depth of 40m, only having a total planned decompression time of 30 minutes. He was also the diver who was supposed to bring the body back to the surface.
Verna van Schaik was the leading support surface coordinator, running the organization for the recovery from the surface.
The idea was to have the deepest diver (Dave) go first, followed 13 minutes later by the second deepest diver (Don), who would then be followed by the third deepest (Mark & Dusan), and so on and so on...
During the first 13 minutes, it was Dave's job to get Deon's body into the body bag, and relay it to Don, who would then be waiting for him.
The Dive Incident
Dave Shaw descends first in Boesmansgat, as planned. The descent goes smoothly and without any complications. Fast enough, he arrives at the end of the main line, connecting the surface to the bottom of the sinkhole. Attached to this line is another, secondary line that connects the main line to Deon's body. Dave follows the thread and finds the body as it was last time. So far, everything has gone as planned.
The next step for him is to get Deon's body into the body bag, this proves to be a challenging thing to do as any task at this depth is significantly more tedious. On top of this, the body is encased in mud and the visibility is not the best. After a bit more work, Dave is able to get the body freed from the mud, only to realize there is another problem no one accounted for: when a body decays at that depth, in that environment, it doesn't necessarily decay, it becomes wax-like, forming a substance called adipocere. That substance has positive buoyancy, and that made Deon's body float, which made it significantly harder for Dave to put him in the body bag.
Now, before moving on, I want to explain a concept in technical diving: familiarity with one's equipment. It is important for divers to know and understand what gear they are using, where it is, etc... usually, in important dives such as this one, divers wouldn't make any last-minute modifications to their equipment. This brings me to something Dave did on this particular dive: because the idea was to have the recovery on video, he strapped a camera onto his helmet, where he would usually wear his torch. He instead passed the torch over his left shoulder.
As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, Dave's light wasn't on his helmet, and when he started to try and free the body, he put his light next to him. After tugging the body around, he realizes that some ropes from the body bag have tangled around the light's head: this is quite a bad situation at that depth and Dave realizes it. He tries to free himself, unsuccessfully. He pulls more and more on the lines, trying to maneuver himself out of that situation, still without any result. The situation, the stress, and the exertion make Dave breathe faster and faster. In the end, Dave wasn't able to get untangled and drowned next to Deon's body.
Thirteen minutes after Dave submerged himself in Boesmansgat, Don Shirley followed. After the initial descent, Don should have stopped as per the plan at 220 meters, waiting for Dave to come to him. However, he pushed a bit more and still, no sign of Dave, until he saw it: one light, in the deepest part of Bushman's Hole, some dozen of meters below him, however, the light was not moving. It is at that moment that Don realizes that if already stayed longer and deeper than planned. If he doesn't start ascending now, he might just stay with Dave and Deon.
The two divers above, Mark Andrews and Dusan Stojakovic were expecting two lights to come to them: Dave's and Don's. They were already past their time limit at 150m, when they see a light below them. They use a slate to inform the others and the surface support that they stayed passed their limit without meeting Dave or Don and that they only see one light below them. They start their ascent, showing the other divers the slate on their way to their decompression stops.
As Mark and Dusan make their way past the group above them (Peter Herbst and Lo Vingerling), Peter doesn't think twice about it: he goes further down to see if someone needs help. As he adventures deeper and deeper, he slowly sees and approaches the single light below him. He is relieved when he sees Don is alive and well, but he doesn't have a lot of time to think as Don flashes him his slate, reading:
Dave not coming back
Even though this happens fast and hits everyone unexpectedly, they realize quickly that they have to focus on something else now: Don's safety. Don stayed longer and deeper than the plan allowed him to, he would need all the support he could get to make it back safely. Although he started his ascent without issues, at a depth of around 50 meters (164 feet), he started to feel disorientated and nauseous, before throwing up in his mouthpiece. This was a sign of decompression sickness occurring in his inner ear. Despite this, after more than 12 hours of decompression and plenty of support from his team, Don was able to reach the surface, where he instantly got treated in the hyperbaric chamber.
Luckily, Don Shirley survived, but the Inner-ear decompression sickness he suffered gave him permanent damage, which led to balance problems and forced him to undergo reeducation. Despite this, Don still dives to this day.
Three days after the incidents, the team reeled all the lines back to the surface, with all the tanks still attached to them. What they found next shocked them: attached just by Dave's light, both Dave's and Deon's body were hooked to the end of the lines. In the end, Dave kept his promise of bringing Deon Dreyer's body back to the surface.
Dave Not Coming Back
Dave Not Coming Back is the name of the documentary based on the real story of Dave Shaw's last dive. The documentary was released in 2020 and has a total runtime of 1h35.
The documentary is narrated by Don Shirley, accompanied by real footage from the preparations and the dive for the rescue operation. Seeing the evolution of the operation in real-time gives us an insight into the mind and the thought process of the leaders of this operation.
FAQ
Where can I watch Dave Not Coming Back? You can stream Dave Not Coming Back on YouTube for Free (click here) or on Amazon Prime.
Is Dave Not Coming Back real? Yes, the documentary Dave Not Coming Back is based on a real story, which is detailed in this article.
At what depth did Dave Shaw die? Dave drowned and died at a depth of 270m (886 feet)