04/23/24
November 18, 2013
Deep-Water Diver Dies Seeking U.S. Record: At the Vertical Blue free diving championship in the Bahamas, a 32-year-old American seeking to set his second national record died this weekend. Nicholas Mevoli was hoping to reach 72 meters on a single inhalation Sunday when he had trouble at 68 meters and seemed to turn back, reports the New York Times. Instead, he dove deeper seeking the record depth and fell unconscious after his climb back to the surface. "Diving to that depth with no fins, that's a hard, physical dive," said Mike Board, the British record-holder. "I was thinking, OK, he's going to have a hard time getting up." Resuscitation attempts for 90 minutes were unsuccessful. In May, Mevoli became the first American to dive below 100 meters using a monofin.
Is it wrong that my immediate reaction was, "Well of course he did." Then again, we did just have a guy skydive from space this year. So maybe I'm just getting old and nervous.
posted by yerfatma at 04:50 PM on November 18, 2013
Nic was also an actor, including in my wife's cousin's film, Exists. My wife's cousin and Nic were also romantically involved for a while. She is devastated right now. It has been tough to read comments on sites that reference this tragedy.
posted by scully at 05:19 PM on November 18, 2013
Sorry for your family's loss, Scully. I don't see how a dive that deep is even close to possible. He must have been a formidable athlete.
posted by rcade at 06:13 PM on November 18, 2013
Interesting sport, and I had no idea that it was an organized body. I can only imagine the trauma placed on the human body by going that deep on a breath and holding it for that long. Damn.