Fatal Depths

what was waiting for them beneath the surface.

“The audio from all three of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel”

and has been remastered for today's episode. The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description. The first story you'll hear is called the French Pass, and it's about a small stretch of water in New Zealand that kills. The second story you'll hear is called the fourth chamber, and it's about two cave divers

who explore a deep underwater chamber. And the third and final story you'll hear is called "Don't Let Go," and it's about

the number one rule in cave diving, never let go of the dive line.

But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the strange dark and mysterious deliberate and story format, then you've come to the right podcast, because that's all we do, and we upload four times a week, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. So if that's of interest to you, please sneak in to the follow button's house and replace all of their family photos of pictures of you wearing their clothes in the same poses.

“Okay, let's get into our first story called "The French Pass."”

The northern end of New Zealand's South Island is a chaos of bays and sounds, and within this intricate coastline lies a narrow stretch of water called the French Pass, and it has a deadly secret. In 1827, French Admiral Jules Derville was mapping the coastline of South Island when he instructed his navigator to enter the pass.

As Derville's crew was entering the narrowest section of the pass, they lost control of their ship and they began spinning. They eventually hit some rocks which cracked their hull, but luckily they came to rest on a nearby reach which prevented them from sinking. After the incident Derville went back to France, and in his report, he said no one should enter

the French Pass unless in an emergency situation, because as Derville and his crew learned

first hand, the French Pass is home to some of the world's most deadly whirlpools, which

are exactly like the swirling tubes of water going down your drain after a bath, but these

“are just much larger and more brilliant.”

Now these French Pass whirlpools are only really dangerous when the tides are actively changing, because during that time a current rips through the waterway that increases the speed and violence of the whirlpool. Once the transition is complete and it becomes fully high tide or fully low tide or even during slack tide, the current slows down so dramatically that the whirlpools more or less

vanish. So today, Mariners do go through the French Pass, but they'll only go through during high low or slack tide. If they miscalculate the tides and get caught in a whirlpool, they could be dragged over

the rocks just like Admiral Derville and his crew.

Now while sailing through the pass is certainly hazardous, it's nothing compared to the risks of scuba diving through the pass. If a scuba diver mis times the tides and gets sucked into a whirlpool, they won't get dragged over the rocks. They'll get pulled straight down to the bottom, where they'll be funneled into these

ultra deep holes that line the sea floor. The deepest of these holes is called Jacob's hole and it goes down over 100 meters. On March 10th, 2007 experienced divers headed out to the French Pass to begin their fifth week of instruction in their dive master course. With a dive master certification, they would become professional divers.

This day, as part of their curriculum, they needed to complete what's called a drift dive, where instead of trying to fight the current, you simply go with it. These seven divers, which were six students and one instructor, would all be tether to the same 30 meter long line that had handholds evenly spaced throughout it. On one end of this line was attached a buoy and then connected to the buoy wasn't inflatable

raft. This allowed surface observers in the boat to track the progress of the dive. The plan was to boat out to the middle of the pass during high tide, jump in the water, and then ride the slow current out of the pass again avoiding all the whirlpools. So at high tide, a boat took the seven divers out to the middle of the pass, they all sat

on the edge of the boat with their fins hanging off towards the side of the water. They clipped into that line, made sure their gear was good to go, they looked at each other and gave the okay symbol, they jumped into the water, as soon as they hit the water, they removed all the air from their compensators and their life jackets and then when they were ready, they looked at each other and gave the thumbs down and they went subsurface.

One of these student divers husbands, a man named Hallett Smith, who had previously completed the dive master course, was in the boat as a safety observer. And he said as soon as the group got in the water and they went subsurface, immediately their buoy and raft took off at a rapid pace. Smith had to tell the boat driver to speed up just to keep pace with the divers, but after

only a minute or two the divers appeared to just stop suddenly in the water and the inflatable

When they drove over to the raft to see what was going on, Smith looked down and realized what had happened.

“The buoy and the line attached to it that all the divers were holding onto had ripped off”

the inflatable raft and been sucked under the surface out of view. It would turn out the lead instructor had gotten the tide's wrong and nobody had noticed. When the divers jumped into the water, it was not high tide like the instructor said it would be. It was changing from high tide to low tide, which meant instead of being a one or two

not current, perfect for a drift dive, there was a six not current ripping through the waterway that sucked them under.

And for reference, any current that's above three knots is basically physically impossible to swim out of.

So all these divers could do was ride it out and hope the currents spat them out before pushing them into a whirlpool, but unfortunately that didn't happen. All seven divers were pulled directly into the worst whirlpool of all because it sat over Jacob's hole and down they went all the way down to 100 meters at the bottom of this hole where they were pinned until eventually the whirlpool began releasing them.

“Back on the surface, Smith, along with the other rescue boats he had called in once he realized”

this was an emergency began hauling the divers out of the water one by one when they popped up on the surface, floating face down. Six divers surfaced, four were badly shaken up, but were alive, one of them was the lead instructor, two had drowned. That was 40-year-old Ricky McDonald and Smith's wife, 33-year-old New Rail to Puri.

As for the seventh and final diver, 21-year-old David Welsh, his body was never found.

So that's led some people to believe he may still be trapped at the bottom of Jacob's hole. The lead instructor who had gotten the tides wrong and the dive shop that employed him were both charged with negligence and had to pay a fine. After the accident there was a big push to ban scuba diving in the French past, but it

didn't hold. Today it's up to each diver to make sure they never go in the past when the tides are changing.

“Our next story is called the fourth chamber.”

In central Texas lies a stunning natural wonder called Jacob's well. It's this beautiful, clear water spring that every summer when the weather gets really hot in Texas, people converge on Jacob's well and enjoy swimming in the water. But it's not just for casual swimmers trying to avoid the heat. It's for daredevil's that straps scuba gear on and dive down through Jacob's well through

a 10-foot wide shaft that leads to one of the most intricate and dangerous underwater cave systems in the world. Jacob's well is broken up into four chambers. As you move from chamber one to two to three to four, it gets harder and harder to squeeze through the narrow spaces and each of the chambers get smaller and they get darker

because you're losing sunlight and they just become overall much more difficult to navigate the deeper you go. Imagine you put on your scuba gear and you hop into Jacob's well and you start swimming straight down. Now there's going to be what looks like the floor of the well and then at the center of it

is a 10-foot wide shaft that goes straight down and it gets swim down through that you're

going to reach the first chamber which sits at about 30 feet and goes all the way down to

55 feet. In that first chamber the sunlight still hits so there's algae, there's wildlife and it's where rookie scuba divers will spend their time in Jacob's well. At the bottom of the first chamber is another shaft opening but it's more narrow than the very first one you went through and that shaft that tunnel is actually what makes

up the second chamber and it brings you down all the way to 80 feet. So from 55 feet to 80 feet you are in the second chamber and it's basically a tube. Any diver that's going to be in Jacob's well has to be aware when you are in the second chamber on your assent to not go down the false chimney. The false chimney is this opening that looks exactly like the main exit out of the second

chamber into the first chamber but it's not. It's a dead end that loops around before you hit a wall and you're going to all the way back out so hopefully you have enough air at that point. The second chamber attracts novice scuba divers and intermediate scuba divers. You still have light coming in but it's definitely more tight it's more claustrophobic

and because of that false chimney it's a little bit more hazardous going into the second chamber. If you continue down past the 80 foot mark which is the bottom of the second chamber there is a very tight squeeze you can barely get through with your tanks on that will bring you into a very small room that is the third chamber.

At this point the sunlight is gone and there's all the silt and loose gravel inside of the third chamber that if your fin so much is noxet it will float into the water and then it will blind you. The third chamber is only from 80 feet to 90 feet so it's only 10 feet of water. Generally speaking you only see expert divers going into the third chamber.

little opening and that is the opening to the infamous fourth and final chamber of Jacob's well.

“No one can describe what it looks like inside of the fourth chamber because one as soon”

as you go in there it's impossible not to kick up a ton of silt so you're going in blind. But too anyone that has attempted to go into the fourth chamber and maybe has been successful has died. There are literally divers that are deceased inside of the fourth chamber and after about

a dozen people died trying to get into that fourth chamber they finally just sealed it

up. But if you were to pry open that gate and go into the fourth chamber you would have to remove your air tanks push them into the fourth chamber and then you'd have to wriggle your way through while keeping the mouthpiece in your mouth into the fourth chamber that again we don't even know what's in there.

In 1983 24 year old college students Richard Patton and Clark McConnell entered Jacob's well around 830 p.m.

“They were both experienced scuba divers they were in an advanced scuba diver class with”

all the certifications for that they had dove Jacob's well before and they wanted to check out the fourth chamber.

They got in the water they went through that initial shaft into the first chamber

they continued into the tunnel that was the second chamber they wriggled their way into the third chamber and they reached the gate. Using some equipment they brought with them they were able to pry open this gate and Richard Patton was the first one to go into the fourth chamber. He removed his tanks and pushed them inside of this opening and then he began head first

slither inside of this fourth chamber opening while Clark waited. And Clark would later say that as soon as Richard and pushed his way and actually made it into the fourth chamber Richard comes screaming up back out of the fourth chamber and Clark realizes that he doesn't have a mouthpiece and he doesn't have scuba tanks on. Richard is desperately trying to wriggle his way out on a breath hold because he's dropped

his tanks and he's reaching for Clark to help him get pulled through this hole and he can barely get out of this hole and as soon as he gets free Clark takes his mouth piece off and he jams it into Richard's mouth and so they begin buddy breathing. One guy breathes while the other guy holds his breath and then they reverse that back and forth back and forth that's not something you would do on a dive for a long period of

time.

“It's an emergency procedure and you need to get to the surface as soon as you can.”

So the pair comes down their buddy breathing and they're making their way back up they're leaving the equipment that they lost in the fourth chamber and they're kicking their

way up and they get back into the third chamber they make their way up into the second

chamber they're kicking it out they're kicking it out and then their heads hit the wall and they realize they've gone down the false chimney and what's even worse is they hear that awful kathum which means you have no air in your tanks. Clark who had taken a full breath before this had happened he immediately turns and starts swimming and manages to get out of the false chimney and makes it to the surface

before he drowns but Richard wasn't as lucky. His final few moments were spent in total darkness with silk kicked up all around him he's got nowhere he's got no idea where to go and he's desperately trying to swim up but he keeps hitting the wall of the false chimney before ultimately drowning. When recovery divers went down to retrieve his body they found him jammed up at the very

end of the false chimney. Next and final story of today's episode is called "Don't Let Go." At 630 pm on May 14, 1955 a 24-year-old man named Donald Jarrou stood next to his friend 28-year-old Marie Anderson on the shore of a natural spring in the state of Georgia. The spring was called "radium springs" because literally there was radium in the water.

Radium is a naturally occurring highly radioactive metallic element but there were such low levels of it in the water that it wasn't really a hazard. However the radium did have an effect on the water it made it practically neon blue and so it was totally mesmerizing I mean you look at this thing and you know there's something different about the spring.

Also this spring was incredibly deep so Donald and Marie were both members of the US Navy and so naturally they spent a lot of time you know in and around water because that's what the Navy does they work in and around water. But ironically it was actually when Donald and Marie were not working that they spent the most amount of time in the water because in their off time they were recreational

scuba divers. Except back in 1955 recreational scuba diving was totally not safe and that was because you know underwater diving certainly existed at the time I mean institutions like the Navy they were prolific divers but civilians did not really dive on their own and so as a result if you wanted to recreationally scuba dive well you didn't really have access to good equipment

for people like Donald and Marie who did want to go explore the underwater abyss on their own they had to literally make their own diving equipment like their own oxygen tanks and their own flashlights and goggles I mean all of it I mean it was amateur it was home

“made equipment and so that's what made it really dangerous on top of when your underwater”

diving as I've done myself a lot of things can go wrong and so that's also dangerous and so the whole thing you know it's asking for problems but for Donald and Marie it was actually the danger associated with recreational diving that made it so appealing they liked the idea that other people were scared to go underwater you know with their DIY equipment you know for Donald and Marie they loved it they got a thrill out of it and on top of that

they kind of felt like explorers they got to go to places underwater where literally nobody else had gone before in fact they had already gone to other locations and mapped out you know tunnels and underwater cave systems and all these different things that literally nobody else had done before and they loved it and today was going to be no different because there were sections in radium springs that nobody had mapped and they were going

to go down there and see it for themselves so after the two men looked at each other and

“nodded and just kind of gave the signal it was time to begin the dive they dawned their”

amateur equipment you know their oxygen tanks and their goggles and their flippers and then they walked into the neon blue water and submerged a few minutes later Donald and Marie had traveled about 70 feet straight down the water column and at this point you know the light is really fading they can't really see too well they did have flashlights that they had rigged up that they water proved but at this point down 70 feet it's getting pretty dark but right in front

of them off to the side was this huge entrance this underwater tunnel entrance and this was actually a well-known cavern like this is actually where other recreational divers would go to if they went to radium springs it was this cavern but while the entrance to the cavern had been sort of mapped out and searched there were all these little spidery offshoots once you got into this cavern that had not been explored and so what Donald and Marie were going to do is go into the cavern

and then basically start you know splintering off and seeing what else was in there and mapping it

“out now as much as Donald and Marie did like the sort of risks associated with this activity”

they weren't completely reckless they had attached a dive line when they had gone into the spring that they attached to the surface and they fed down with them it's a 200 foot line and they carried it with them the lead diver would basically unspool as they went the two divers would be right next to each other and they'd be holding on to this line and so when they would go into this cavern if for some reason they got turned around or you know if they got you know totally confused

whatever it was they could always just follow their line back out of the cavern back up to the surface

this was not like rocket science this is something that divers today still do so using a dive line very common practice and Donald and Marie were doing just that and so they went into this cavern they got their dive line spooling out and everything is totally fine but once they were inside of this cavern all the light completely went away I mean the cavern was relatively spacious but you know the light is coming straight down and this tunnel entrance is basically you know horizontal and so

once they're inside of this cavern it's utterly pitch black but Donald and Marie have dove other underwater cave systems they knew going in how dark this cave system was going to be they had their flashlights you know that they had Jerry rigged to be waterproof and they're holding on to their line and they're going into this cavern looking for their first offshoot but as they're going into this cavern there's all this silt all this mud that's kind of caked to the walls and the floor

that began getting kicked up from their flippers and bumping into it and before long because of the

silt and the lack of light they could basically only see maybe six inches in front of them like even

shining their light all they'd see is all the silt and so very quickly the visibility basically fell to zero but you know again they're going in knowing this is the environment they're going into their confident they're cool they're moving along but as the two divers were continuing through the cavern you know getting deeper and deeper and it's starting to get more and more restrictive you know the deeper they go they were about to go into this offshoot when Donald suddenly started

seeing all these air bubbles coming up against him and now he can't quite see where they're coming from but there's only one place that an air bubble could be emerging from and that's from his oxygen tank and so clearly there's some sort of issue he can't see because it's so dark he also has homemade equipment and so the risk of catastrophic failure is pretty high with his equipment and so he begins trying to figure out where this leak is coming from you know checking

his equipment trying to make it stop but he can't he can't really communicate to Walter who's got the spool of dive line who's continuing straightforward into this offshoot he can't quite tell him what's going on that can't actually speak to each other again it's pitch black there's still to sort of

you know claustrophobic and stressful and so ultimately Donald grabs Murray and just tries to

understood but Donald he knew he just had to get out of there he had to go back to the surface and

“fix his issue before it got way worse and so even though he knew he was kind of leaving his”

body here he's thinking okay you know Murray's got the dive line he's experienced I just grabbed him everything's going to be okay and Donald turned around you know kicked up more silt and held onto that dive line but now followed it back out of the cavern and back up to the surface and when he got to the surface he took a big breath he was saved you know he checked his equipment and realized you know wherever the issue was and he was actually able to fix the issue and so before

long after only being on the surface for a couple of minutes he had put his equipment back on his back in the water and following the dive line back down towards the cavern as Donald began his descent down towards that cavern 70 feet down the whole time he's holding onto the dive line you

know making sure he doesn't lose that but really what he's focused on is checking his equipment

because as he's going down he's got basic visibility here you know it's not going to be like in the cavern where you can't see anything and so as he's going down he's checking his equipment and just making sure that there isn't a leak and by the time he got all the way down 70 feet in the dive line turned and went into that cavern Donald was feeling pretty good that his equipment was good it was not malfunctioning and it was safe to go back into the cavern with Murray and

“so that's what he does he's got his flashlight in one hand he's got the dive line in the other”

he's now looking straight into this dark opening of this cavern and in Donald goes the whole time holding onto that dive line and pretty much immediately once inside the cavern the flashlight became useless because again the silt still kicked up there's no current running through this cavern so the silt is not going anywhere but either way you know Donald knew what he was doing he was going straight in there to connect with Murray and continue this dive and see what else is

in here and you know map it out for other divers and so into the cavern he goes he's holding the dive line in one hand he's got his flashlight and he's going deeper and deeper into this cavern and the whole time he's expecting it any moment he's just gonna bump in to Murray but he just keeps going and going deeper and deeper into the system the walls are getting tighter and tighter around him eventually he reaches the very end of the dive line 200 feet at this point

deep into this cavern and there's no Murray Murray's gone now Donald he's looking around

“remember it's total darkness all he's got is this flashlight which basically just illuminates”

the silt that's been kicked up all around him but where he is at this exact moment the silt wasn't too bad it was just like this biss all around him it's totally black there's nothing around him and in a sudden panic Donald thinks oh my goodness I'm so far into this cavern I haven't found Murray like something's happened to him he's run out of air or he's gotten lost like how could he have let go of the dive line what's going on here and so Donald immediately just starts going down

to the bottom of the cave and searching the ground thinking that you know maybe Murray got to this point passed out and sunk to the bottom but he gets to the bottom of the cave there's nothing there he starts feeling the tunnels there's nothing and at this point he's kicked up even more silt and so like he really can't see anything and he's thinking it took me a while to get in here and I'm running low on oxygen right now I need to get help immediately because Murray he's

gonna run out of time really quickly here and so Donald he turns around and holding on to this dive line he pulls himself out of the cavern he goes back to the surface you know some part of him was hoping that when he got up there that he would just magically see Murray waiting for him but nope he's all alone there's nobody here and at that point Donald took off his gear any contact to the authorities not long after that two commercial divers along with an entire

US Navy dive team arrived at radium springs and began looking for Murray and they searched and they searched and they couldn't find him until 8 a.m. the next morning 12 hours after Donald had surfaced it would turn out when Donald had that malfunction that caused him to leave the cavern and leave Murray behind and go to the surface and fix himself and then go back down again well in that space of time that he was away from Murray Murray continued to spool out the

dive line maybe not necessarily knowing that Donald had left him at this point and Murray got all the way to the end of the dive line 200 feet and at that point in this uncharted tunnel he was in somehow or another Murray became disconnected from the dive line maybe he let go of it maybe he

bumped into something we don't know but either way he let go of the dive line basically right at

the end of the dive line and when Donald came back down and got to the end of that dive line and discovered Murray wasn't there well what he didn't know is that Murray actually was just a couple of feet away he was basically right above him because that's where Murray was ultimately found he had drowned literally feet away from the dive line but Donald he couldn't see him and in a total panic state in an effort to find Murray Donald began fumbling around going down

and rubbing up against the bottom and the walls kicking up all this silt and you got to figure

him and now his visibility which was already terrible he's probably scared to death because he's

“looking for this dive line and now the silt is just getting kicked up all around him he probably”

knows Donald's nearby he's swimming around looking for Donald Donald's looking for Murray they swim right past each other it's absolute madness but then eventually Donald just vanishes because he's

going to find help and Murray is left all by himself and total darkness disoriented terrified

has no idea where the dive line is silt is making it impossible to know what direction he's even

“going and so in Murray's final moments he just scrambled around trying to find his way out again”

until he eventually drowned again just feet away from his dive line the very thing that would have

brought him to safety a quick note about our stories they are all based on true events

but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes the mr. ball and podcast strange dark and mysterious stories is hosted and executive produced by me mr. ballon our head of writing is Evan Allen produced by Jeremy bone in colococcio research in fact checking by shellys shoe Samantha van hoose Evan Beamer Abigail Shumway Camille Callahan Alex Paul Ben Fassiano research in fact checking supervision

by Stephen ear audio editing and post-produced by Whitlicoccio and Jordan Stitham production support by Antonio Manada and Delana Corley artwork by Jessica Klogst and Kiner theme song something wicked by Ross plugged in thank you for listening to the mr. ballon podcast and just a reminder every new and exclusive episode we put out on the mr. ballon podcast you can also now watch on the mr. ballon youtube channel that very same day and trust me

some of these stories you truly have to see to believe again my youtube channel is just called

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