K TUNNEL
OXYGEN TOXICITY

Objective: Film a successful deep-cave mission.

Producer Simon Boyce learns that Wakulla project leader Bill Stone’s crew plans an all-out assault by divers Brian Kakuk and Matt Matthews on K Tunnel, a remote pipeline that stretches thousands of feet. This mission—if successful—may become the longest cave dive in history.

The news comes unexpectedly early, with EXPLORER host Boyd Matson still in training. But this may be the expedition’s supreme moment, so Simon, associate producer Kevin Krug, and underwater videographer Wes Skiles strike out for Wakulla, leaving Boyd to finish his training on his own.

The next morning Brian reviews the plan at Mission Control 12>>. He lays out the dive objectives and reviews everyone’s role—gear prep, underwater support, decompression watch. Nothing is left to chance.

Yet trouble plagues this mission. The team hopes to set off by 9:00 a.m., but the scooters are acting up and need more testing. Launch is pushed back—to noon, then early evening, the following morning. Bill and Matt are pensive >>16.

The divers’ misfortune buys the camera crew much-needed time. A critical task on any shoot is to establish the characters—who are the divers? what motivates them?—so Simon interviews Matt 93>>, a German citizen who makes his home in Mexico where there are lots of caves to dive. Matt holds caving and diving records and had been the first human to brave any number of pristine caves around the world. He has no illusions about the risks. “I could die here,” he admits. Brian confronts the dive with equal gravity 91>>, but declines an interview—he needs solitude before the critical mission.

The next day there are more snags: Bill traces an electronics glitch in the wall mapper 62>> to a snapped wire, quickly remedied with some solder. At 11:00 a.m. the team heads into the spring—first Brian, then Matt with the wall mapper 94>>—only to return 15 minutes later: The bulb in Brian’s main light is out! It’s swapped on the beach and the duo enter the cave again. Finally, after 28 hours of delay, the mission is on.

Just four hours later, too soon for a record, Matt and Brian reappear on camera at the mouth of the cave. The support team scrambles, preps the diving bell, and hustles Brian and Mark inside and back to the surface 16a>>. A wall of black water—perhaps an old storm’s runoff full of surface muck—had forced them to turn back in a known passage well short of a record. As the pair transfers safely to the decompression chamber 45>>, K Tunnel’s mysteries remain intact.

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Objective: Return from the field with no casualties.

Producer Simon Boyce’s Wakulla story is a wrap, short of some supplementary footage EXPLORER host Boyd Matson and associate producer Kevin Krug will shoot in a nearby grotto on a brief return visit. The field team makes dinner plans and confirms departing flights.

Meanwhile, videographer Wes Skiles has offered his crew’s assistance to a Korean videographer who wants to film the spring. We drool over his next-generation toy 37>>: a high-definition TV camera with custom-made deep-water housing.

It’s a leisurely dive without scooters, rebreathers, or diving bells, just routine scuba, a float in a pond. Several divers accompany the videographer, while a few position lights for an evening shoot. Then a diver on Wes’s support team plummets 100 feet (30 meters) to the bottom. Two nearby divers kick after him and see that he’s not breathing. They race him to the surface to save his life.

The unlucky diver is dragged to the surface, unconscious. The EXPLORER crew hears the commotion up at mission control and dashes to the beach. The diver awakens, bleeding from his nose and mouth, and lies convulsed in pain and writhing on the shore. The diagnosis: oxygen toxicity, accidentally breathing pure oxygen at high pressure. Cameras roll as a medical helicopter arrives to rush him to a Tallahassee hospital.

The crew’s fast action and the Tallahassee doctors save the diver’s life, and the next day he’s back on his feet. But the crisis underscores a somber reality: No diving is without risk.

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