She's an archaeology major, with a specific interest in underwater archaeology. She told us that over the summer she was talking with one of her professors during a field study excursion, and after her expression of interest in underwater cave exploration, he began to frighten her away from the prospect with his plethora of cave diving horror stories.
He told an especially disturbing story about one such unlucky adventurer. Apparently one of the (many) big dangers about underwater cave exploration is that you can't predict when/where you may run into a swift current, which may or may not sweep you away from your group and through a maze of unpredictable tunnels never before seen or inhabited by human life. Can you guess what happened to this poor, unfortunate soul? And to add to the claustrophobic terror of it all, your oxygen tank only lasts for about an hour, your lamp maybe double that. So this guy gets swept away, and his buddies can't really follow after him for fear of being channeled into the most remote of watery graves as well. They fished a cord thing through the tunnels and swam in and out, in and out, trying and trying to find him. It's a little difficult though when one fork in the labyrinth leads to another which leads to another. He could have been anywhere. Eventually, after awhile of searching (for days? weeks? How long do you look for a friend/colleague before you decide the hunt is fruitless?) they finally had to give up and go home.
As it turns out, five years later they finally found his body in a small cavern, off one of the maze of branches that they hadn't realized before. An autopsy revealed that he had been alive for an entire month before he finally expired. Though he'd lived in complete darkness all that time, he had been able to breathe because of the air in the cavern, and he lived off of the freshwater until he finally starved to death. They found areas in the cave walls where he had attempted to dig/scratch his way to an escape.
Can you imagine??? Apparently one in four cave diver archaeologists end up dying. Anybody still interested in suiting up and jumping in? My roommate sure isn't.
She made this video as part of an application for a school thing she wanted to participate in back before she came to the United States (she's Portuguese). Each applicant had to make a video describing what they would be able to contribute to the group. At the beginning of the video, the text says something to the effect of, "I know how to tell stories." She certainly does! It's a really cool clip, and she did it all completely herself. Check it out:
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