In a recent interview with Fields Blog one of our extraordinary (sphere/mermaid) squad members Prue Newton shared a small insight into her past life as a marine rescue diver. Here is a small excerpt on a highly recommended article at fieldsblog.com.
Fields: Was there an experience that made you stop diving?
Prue: Three years ago was my last rescue job. Long story short, I had to do a rescue in a 150m long cave. When I was 100m in, I had a severe equipment malfunction and lost the majority of my air and buoyancy. We were in an open-air cavern, I could see the two people we were trying to save, [one had already passed away] and I could see [the other] didn’t have much longer, they were semi-conscious and not very coherent. Having a second person come in would have been hours, and I didn’t think [they] had hours. I took [them] as far as I could, and then we had 50m to dive to the last line where the support team could pull [them] out. My plan was to give [them] the remaining air which meant I would have to free dive – which wasn’t hard for me at the time – but without factoring in being over-exerted from having to drag [them] and other complications from the dive. I remember just hooking [them] on the last line after a few minutes and then I passed out. I had to get pulled out and resuscitated, which broke my sternum and ribs. My decision has been questioned but you’ve got to make those decisions really quickly down there and my assessment was that [they] wouldn't have lived if I’d left [them] so I stand by it.
Check out the full interview at Fields Blog