The article gives insight into Ben McDaniel's families anguish over the last year.
Interestingly it also gave some facts that I didnt know:
describes Vortex Spring as one of the most dangerous underwater caves in the world,
said that a Vortex Spring employee unlocked the gate.
quotes a brother wondering about ????
.
The article also leaves out a bunch of facts.
1.) Ben was not certified to Cave Dive, nor had he even started taking classes.
2.) Ben had replaced the chain hinge bolts on the gate with his own locks, so he could get in when he wanted, without the regular key.
3.) It's reported that Ben had been sneaking into Vortex at night to dive w/o registering with the office.
4.) Ben's gear was a cluster-fluck. He had brass DIN/yoke converters on his regs and one of his deco bottles didn't have a valve knob on it and he had to open it with a pair of pliers he had bungee'd to the cylinder.
5.) Ben owed the IRS $50k in upaid taxes
6.) Ben owed Tennesee state Dept of Revenue several thousand also
7.) You don't have that kind of backlog of dept to the government without having other outstanding financial issues also.
8.) none of the search teams found any evidence that anyone had been back in the cave (scrape marks, etc.)
Moving this to the mexico forum is almost quite fitting...
It sure doesn't belong in Cave Diving forum as "he wasn't in there".
