It was at the same moment that McFaden flashed Gavin with his primary light and signaled he was “out of air”. Instinctively, Gavin gave McFaden his long hose second stage regulator and they began to share air. Gavin then attached the tow strap of his deep modified Tekna DPV to begin the exit.
The three cave divers swam the short distance to the “well” that is the bottom of the fifth room. Time was very important not only because of the bottom time and decompression but because valuable air was used during the delay searching for McFaden.
Gavin began to swim ascending into the upper section of the fifth room and continuously venting air from his dry suit while McFaden was grasping onto Gavin’s manifold of his twin 104 cubic feet cylinders. Gavin realized he was still rising despite dumping all the air out of dry suit. McFaden had obviously lost control of his dry suit and was very much in jeopardy.
The twosome stopped rising as they were now at the bell-shaped ceiling at a depth of 100 feet. They had risen approximately 80 feet very rapidly. At this time, Main had caught up from the deeper depths and grabbed McFaden’s legs in order to regain control of the disastrous situation. Gavin tried very hard to get McFaden to switch to Main’s air supply but was not able to as McFaden would not release the manifold.