You are right, Harry must have changed it. You can still see the link to the article on the blog part of their site, but it just links to the dive site page.
That's unfortunate, the original had some very good and very specific information in it.
I suppose there was pressure not to release any details until there is the final, and usually mythical, accident report.
Does anyone know why the divers tried it then? Did any of the others make it through or was the victim first to try? Does anyone know if the group had a guide with them?
It's reasonable to assume that they were not aware it was now a restriction. Many of the cave divers I know here in the US were not aware it was now a restriction, including myself as we have not dove Manatee in a couple years.
My understanding is that there were 4 divers on the dive (see below), all from China, so no local guide.
The story I saw said it was a husband and wife team, The husband went first and made it through. The wife went next and did not exit.
All the news articles and the post from the SO's office indicated a husband and wife.
However, this post from the Levy County SO's office was re-posted in a facebook accidents and incidents forum by a self reported friend of the divers, Chun Zhou (highlight added):
November 25, 2019
Sunday, November 24, 2019 at 5 PM Manatee Springs State Park officials were notified to contact 911 because a diver was trapped in the main spring outflow area inside of the cave system. Levy County Sheriff’s Office Dive Rescue team members responded to discover the diver, Zhou Min (5-8-91), a certified cave diver from Foshan City, China became lodged in a narrow space while exiting the main spring. Zhou was accompanied on this dive by her husband and two other friends, also from China, who came to the United States on a vacation visa specifically to dive sites like Manatee Springs.
Manatee Springs officials say the outflow from the main boil area has increased over the past few days due to recent rains in this region. This increased outflow hampered the diver’s ability to remove Zhou from the small space where her body had become lodged. Two attempts to remove Zhou were made Sunday evening that were unsuccessful. Today at approximately 3 PM the International Underwater Cave Rescue Recovery Team (IUCRR) a non-profit team locally based in Lake City, comprised of expert cave divers were able to successfully recover her.
This is an extremely sad situation, Sheriff McCallum said. Our hearts and prays are with this family at this time.
The highlighted section is a superb example of poorly worded and ambiguous language. Between the wording and the lack of a paragraph break it's not clear if the victims team mate tried to dislodge her before she died, or if a Sheriff department recovery diver was hampered by the flow when attempting to dislodge her body later during the two unsuccessful recovery attempts.
It's also not clear how the rest of the team(s) exited and the SO's post indicates a total of 4 divers.
As to marital status, in the same thread Chun Zhou also posted "Yes, both of them are my friends. They are a couple who are just going to marry." Taken literally that suggests they were engaged, but it could also mean they were recently married. Normally I'd say that multiple reports of husband and wife would suggest that;s the case, but I suspect the multiple posts and articles all come from a single source, where English proficiency may have been an issue. Either way, a close personal relationship.
Really sad. In old pictures, on maps and on old videos you see people doing the exit. Is it possible that the divers did not know about the collapse? As you can see on my old picture, it is not too narrow. When we did it, we could go back against the current if we wanted from the point I took the picture. I also read that you cannot go back now anymore if you are at that point. Also we don't know if they dove oc or ccr? The way back against current is not that long in meters, but if the current is strong it will costs tons of gas of course (also on oc bo with ccr).
My understanding from Harry's original post(?) was that she was OC with back mounted double LP 85s and he was sidemount and (IIRC) CCR.
When the flow is normal, it's a lot of work to get back upstream once you've started down from Catfish, unless you have a DPV.
