Gavin looked at his air gauge and saw he was down to 1000 psi. He realized that for him to get McFaden out of the cave they had better start moving now. Normally, for one person under normal circumstances, 1000 psi is plenty of air to exit from the fifth room as the distance is less than 700 feet. As a reminder, until this emergency involved Bill Gavin, he was performing his dive separately from the team of Main and McFaden.
Switching on the DPV, Gavin motorized his way down from the bell-shaped ceiling of the fifth room with McFaden breathing hard. Gavin realized this was going to be a close ordeal. If only McFaden would gain control of his buoyancy and/or switch to Main’s air.
A medical autopsy report performed two days after this accident revealed that McFaden had suffered an embolism in the brain. There were many questions asked. Was McFaden hurt and unable to help himself? Did the stress cause him to hold his breath during the rapid ascent in the fifth room?
Now into the fourth room Gavin kept the momentum going as they moved into the third room and then into the larger second room. As they were negotiating the “duck under” from the second room into the 1st Room, again they lost control as there was a sudden rise to the ceiling from 100 feet to 60 feet. McFaden could not control his dry suit. Bill Main thought about knifing McFaden’s dry suit in order to dump the air but decided the sudden, cold water would shock McFaden and make matters worse.
They now reached the area of the first room known as the balcony, entering into a low bedding plane before reaching a 15-foot minor restriction that is choked with organic debris and into the open water area of the sink hole. Gavin’s second-stage regulator was breathing harder and harder. His thoughts were racing but still in control thinking how scathing to be so close to getting out of the cave but still end up dead.
With his lungs burning, Gavin looked over to Bill Main and recognized Main was breathing on his backup regulator. Gavin thought that McFaden was now breathing on Main’s primary regulator. He thought how ironic to have two people out-of-air with three people trying to exit through a minor, silt clogged restriction.
Main recognized that Gavin was suffering badly and quickly gave him his second stage regulator. Taking three breaths, Gavin was numb by the lack of air, exhausted and barely intelligible. At the same time, Gavin felt McFaden release his hammer-lock grasp on his manifold. It was clear that McFaden was unconscious and gone. Through the sheer chaos, Gavin and Main began to gather their wits. Though breathing, Gavin was not convinced that he would make it out of the cave alive.