After all the facts were explained the Leon County Sheriff’s Department designated Buddy Grose, John Malik, Mike Sasnett and myself as the recovery team. We devised a plan since we knew where McFaden was located. We assembled our cave diving equipment and carefully entered the water as the slopes of the sinkhole were treacherous. We performed all of our safety checks and a quick review of hand signals and the out-of-air emergency drill. I entered the cave and negotiated the restriction first with Mike following. Buddy stayed in the open water area near the entrance of the restriction.
As I entered into the bedding plane area I immediately spotted McFaden and swam over to his body. He was upside down floating at the ceiling. The first thing I checked was his air gauge. In disbelief, I saw that Bill had 400 psi of air left in his double 104’s steel scuba tanks. That is almost equal to a single 80 cubic foot filled to 2400 psi. I slammed my fist into the limestone floor and then shaking it in disgust and despair. Technically, McFaden had enough air to swim half the distance from where he signaled he was out-of-air. I showed the gauge to Mike and I could tell he was surprised too. I realized that McFaden was narked and scared. He had no control of his mental well being and his actions.
McFaden was in full blown rigor mortis, stiff as a board. We got out our knives out and began cutting the 2-inch nylon webbing that was attached around his chest. The double tanks with the Wings BCD, back plate and harness quickly fell to the floor. The mask was still fastened to his face with a little bit of blood inside. Typically, with most scuba drowning accidents the victim typically rips the mask off of his face from a reflex behavior before they pass out. Mike and I moved McFaden closer to the restriction but with him being so rigid it was impossible to get him through. We called the dive and exited the cave and slowly swam to the surface.
The visibility in the open water area of the sinkhole was fairly good. Typically, during the warmer months of the year, an algae bloom appears and the visibility is almost zero. Hammock Sink is an off-set sinkhole meaning the basin is not in the direct path of any water flow. I swam over to sink hole’s edge where Captain Ken McDonald and Terry Coughlin stood. I explained the predicament. My concern was getting Bill out of the cave as soon as possible. It being a Sunday evening, no TV or newspaper people had shown up and I felt the view of respect for Bill and his family was very