WEBVTT - Thinking Sideways: The Disappearance of Ben McDaniels 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:04.120 Thinking Sideways. It is not brought to you by spoons. Instead, 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:07.280 it is supported by the generous contributions of people like you, 0:00:07.440 --> 0:00:11.680 our listeners on Patreon. Visit patreon dot com slash thinking 0:00:11.720 --> 0:00:28.600 Sideways to learn more Thinking Sideways. I don't stories of 0:00:28.680 --> 0:00:34.720 things we simply don't know the answer too. Hey there everybody, 0:00:34.760 --> 0:00:38.680 and welcome again to the podcast. I am Steve, of course, 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:45.800 as always, joined by Joe. And that's it. Yeah, the 0:00:45.840 --> 0:00:48.920 antern didn't work out. Yeah, it turns out, get a 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:54.040 visa problem. Um. So, as always, this week we have 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:57.280 another mystery for you. Today we're going to talk about 0:00:57.360 --> 0:01:02.200 the disappearance of Ben McDaniels. And uh been dispired after 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:05.559 he entered a he was diving, and he disappeared after 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:09.200 he entered a underwater cave on the eighteenth of August, 0:01:10.480 --> 0:01:12.360 and he never came back out, and he never came 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:15.320 back out, well that we know of, he was never 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:18.600 seen again. Who was never seen again? Now, if you 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:22.559 are at all a claustrophobic or be afraid of the water, 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:26.280 or worse both, you're gonna get the Bejesus scared out 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:28.440 of you with this story to just warn you up 0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:31.200 ahead of deep water, deep water. Yeah, hopefully none of 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:36.600 our listeners have babies. That's so weird that I get it. Yeah, 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:39.840 I totally get that weird. We need to stop doing 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:42.199 the podcast because you're understanding my logic all of a sudden. 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:48.080 It's not good. It's creepy. Yeah, well, how does this 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:50.720 story go? Well, before we get into the story, actually, 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:53.760 this is a listeners suggestion, So I do want to 0:01:53.800 --> 0:01:57.160 say thank you to both Eden and Emily. They are 0:01:57.200 --> 0:02:00.560 currently the only ones listed as suggesting it. You very much. 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:03.080 Anybody else suggested and we forgot to put journalists. Sorry 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:05.640 about that, Yeah, because this was a great story, wild 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:07.320 right you two. No, I've been working on this for 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:11.040 a month or more now, Yeah, good story. So taking 0:02:11.040 --> 0:02:14.720 it from the beginning, Ben McDaniels was a thirty year 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:19.160 old man. He was originally from Tennessee and the year 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:21.880 two thousand nine was a really bad year for Ben. 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:25.240 He uh, he got divorced, which I imagine took a 0:02:25.240 --> 0:02:29.639 lot of his things. His business went under, which I'm 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:33.480 sure took a lot of his things as well, and 0:02:33.520 --> 0:02:36.720 then he lost his home, which would have taken one 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:39.840 of his big things. So he had a really bad year. 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:42.160 This was also one single year, and he had some 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:45.840 tax problems too. Yeah, the business going under his I 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:47.959 think it was a construction business, if I remember correct. 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:51.440 And when it failed, he had a tax bill between 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:54.359 the state of Tennessee and the Feds of somewhere around 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:59.640 fifty thousand, which is a hefty, hefty bill. So he 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:02.480 didn't really know what to do. So, doing what a 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:04.760 lot of people do, he moved back in with his parents. 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:07.720 His mom and dad were very gracious and they took 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:11.920 him in and after a while they said, well, listen, 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:14.400 you need to kind of figure your stuff out. You 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:17.240 need to get your act together. Tell you what, and 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:19.799 as they called it, why don't you take a sabbatical? 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:24.799 What a sabbatical from unemployment, from life, from life as 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:29.399 Actually it's okay. They have a home in Florida since yeah, 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:31.360 their second home. It's in Santa Rosa. It was a 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:35.200 condo if I remember correct, And they said, go to 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:39.120 the condo, live in Florida, will pay your expenses, will 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:42.040 cover your living costs. And imagine they gave him money 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:46.760 to you know, spending cash. Absolutely have some money though 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:51.800 they did have money. They have by the way, Santa Rosa, 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:55.040 just to spare having to look at Google Earth. It's 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:59.840 on the Gulf coast of Florida. Yeah, yeah, it's not 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:05.320 on the Atlantic coast. Yeah yes, um so yeah, Ben, Ben, 0:04:05.480 --> 0:04:10.360 you know, okay, be hard to turn that down. Yeah, 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:13.760 I really would. So he went to he went to Florida, 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:17.120 and while he was there, he began to indulge an 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:21.560 old hobby, which was scuba diving. From the stuff that 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:24.880 his family has put out, Ben began diving at the 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:28.040 age of fifteen, so he seems to have been an 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:32.000 experienced diver. He wasn't a professional, but he was, you know, 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:34.640 an amateur diver. And I don't have a sense of 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:37.880 if how you know how frequently that continued. One he 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:41.240 don't in Florida, it was he was definitely diving, like 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:43.440 all the time. That was pretty much all he was doing. 0:04:43.440 --> 0:04:45.760 It seemed like, and it seemed like when he was 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:48.920 a kid, he really enjoyed it. So he kind of 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:51.800 got maybe he picked up an old hobby. But I 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:54.520 don't necessarily have the sense that this is something he'd 0:04:54.520 --> 0:04:57.560 been doing avidly the entire time. I would not disagree 0:04:57.560 --> 0:04:59.320 with that at all. In a place like Tennessee, it 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:01.440 might be tough to find good places to go because 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:03.920 I know, I know people around here who are scuba divers, 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:06.720 and there's really not much of any place to scuba 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:09.920 diving if we don't yeah deep deep lakes or what 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:13.720 really make good or beautiful underwater landscapes or what you're 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:17.240 after interesting things. So I understand why he might not 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:18.839 have done it so much, because you don't want to 0:05:18.920 --> 0:05:22.080 jump in the river and scuba dive. Yeah, not so fun. Yeah. Well, 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:26.600 also like a waste of resources. You can snorkele in it. 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:30.000 You should just snorkle in it. Um. So well, Okay, 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:34.160 So Ben, he's scuba diving, and he evidently didn't like 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:39.400 diving in saltwater, which I can't hold against him. Saltwater rashes, Yeah, 0:05:39.520 --> 0:05:43.640 it's it's gonna it's gonna take a little physical toll 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:46.719 on you. Plus the buoyancy issue. I was just gonna say, 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:49.800 the buoyancy issue. Yeah. Ben was not a small guy. 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:54.080 I think he. I think Ben was like six foot ballpark, 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:56.320 which would and I think it was something like a 0:05:56.400 --> 0:06:02.240 hundred eight to ten. Okay. I knew that he wasn't 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:05.560 a skinny guy by any means, So, but he didn't 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:08.200 he didn't like to go there. So he liked freshwater dive. 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:10.240 So what's he do. He finds a place near him 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:15.640 called Vortech Spring because it's freshwater. It's absolutely beautiful and 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:17.920 it is fresh for those who are going to pull 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:19.880 a Joe and go to Google Earth and look for 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:24.120 Vortech Springs. It's just outside of Pasta Leon, Florida, so 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:26.760 it wasn't too far away from where he lived. And 0:06:26.800 --> 0:06:29.920 as Devin said, it's really pretty. I mean it's a giant, 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:32.880 it's a it's a natural spring. So it is cool 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:36.839 water upwelling out of the earth. Yeah, that's not really 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:40.640 cool in my book. Well, when it's a hundred percent 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:46.280 humidity and a hundred degrees that way right, we're not 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:49.880 talking Oregon Coast cool. Correct. It is very nice to 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:52.760 swim in, and in fact, its main draw is for 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:56.039 people to swim in it. They've got zip lines and 0:06:56.120 --> 0:06:58.119 stuff like that. I mean it looks like a fun 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:00.200 place to go. Oh yeah, I'd like to go. But 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:03.359 and I'm sure the water was just all fresh and 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:05.680 clear because it get getting changed out. I mean it 0:07:05.800 --> 0:07:09.359 was up well from the aquifer. And then that is 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:12.480 exactly why it is so popular with divers because open 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:15.280 water divers can go there. The water temperature is consistent, 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:19.360 the current is gentle. It's consistent but gentle, and therefore 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:23.360 it's not dirty. There's lots of aquatic life to check out. 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:27.840 So it's really really interesting. And let's keep talking about 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:29.560 the cave because there's a couple of things that I 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:32.880 want to go over, one of which is the shape 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:37.480 of the cave. So the vortex springs. If you think 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:40.400 about it, it's a giant hole in the ground. There's 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:43.920 a big basin. It's fifty to sixty ft deep, which 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:47.720 equates to about fifteen and sixteen so it's fairly deep 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:52.280 a ways down and if you look at it in profile, 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:55.600 if you look at it, there's maps available which you 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:57.480 should look up because we're not ever going to be 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:00.320 able to describe it. Well no, no, but it almost 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:03.600 to me from the side, looks like a semi deflated 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:05.800 pastry bag, you know, the thing that like that you 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:09.880 decorate cakes with, because it's it's kind of triangular and 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:12.600 then it's zig zags back and forth and it's really skinny. 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:16.240 Devon's laughing, but she gets it, she totally gets it. 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:20.040 But so it goes down for for quite a bit, 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:24.280 nobody knows how deep the cave is and by or 0:08:24.360 --> 0:08:26.760 how long the cave is. Is the the appropriate way 0:08:26.800 --> 0:08:29.040 to say that, we know basically how deep it is 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:32.920 at the back correct. What they need to do is 0:08:32.920 --> 0:08:36.880 is like dress up a small child in a wet 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:38.600 suit with tanks and everything and send it to that 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:43.680 skinny part. Think you're supposed to do that? I think, yes, yeah, 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:49.520 it's crazy, I know, Joe. But okay. For the length 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:53.520 of the cave, we know that the cave is over 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:58.199 seventeen feet long, which again for our folks that are 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:04.800 to the same measurement system, it's law. At least at 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:07.880 least that's it's probably farther, but that's as far as 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:10.600 anyone has gone that we know of, and that that number, 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:14.400 by the way, is self reported. It's from prett reliable source, 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:17.880 but it's self reported for the distance. If anybody's ever 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:20.560 gone into a cave, as we were talking about, they 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:23.080 get harder and harder to go into because they get 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:26.800 smaller and smaller as they go, they get narrower, and 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:31.280 this cave is no different as it dives down the 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:34.960 walls and expand and contract and change shape. But they 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:38.880 generally continually get closer and closer together. They call them restrictions, 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:43.720 I think is what they call them. And I'm sorry, yeah, 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:46.120 bottleneckt So it's like, you know, it's a wide open 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:50.440 cave and then there's this like part that you have 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:52.800 to squeeze through and then it opens up again and 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:57.880 it's narrow and that can be horizontally or vertically or both. Yeah. Yeah, 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:00.520 I mean there are caves near us called the Caves 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:03.760 which do this. Um, if you've ever been in any cave, 0:10:03.840 --> 0:10:06.079 you know what we're talking about. Yeah, there's not Ape Cave. 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:08.040 There's not too much of that though. It's i mean 0:10:08.040 --> 0:10:11.320 it's good to the very end, well at the very end. Yeah. 0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:13.400 There's another one that's only a couple of miles away 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:15.720 from there, called Little Red River Cave. Yeah. Have you 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:18.839 been there. Yeah, it's a gated cave, but but you know, 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:22.880 you go all the way to the end. He didn't really, Okay, 0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:25.640 when you get it goes downward and there's a there's 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:29.199 it's it's a difficult, more difficult than Ape Cave, but 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:31.679 it keeps going downward and there's some climbing and stuff involved, 0:10:32.160 --> 0:10:35.000 and as you get down towards the end, water starts 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:37.240 coming in because you go below the water table and 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:39.600 so there's water dripping from the ceiling and running running 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:41.200 down the floor and everything. And then you finally get 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:43.440 to this end, then it's just a lake. It's like 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:47.000 it ends in water, which it may continue. Oh yeah, 0:10:47.120 --> 0:10:48.839 so if you put scoopy gear on and went down that, 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:51.120 I'm not about to, but if you wanted to, you 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:53.920 can see how far that thing goes. But I had 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:56.800 my creepiest cave experience in there. One time. I was like, 0:10:57.320 --> 0:10:59.680 I was caved with three friends and we got to 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:01.920 the and then we turned around and started heading back 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:04.520 to the entrance and I was bringing up the rear 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:07.200 and suddenly way back and this is this is like 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:10.400 actually a distance away from the end of the cave, 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:13.160 and suddenly I heard this. I heard this thud coming 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:15.760 from behind me in the cave, and I stopped and 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:20.400 I looked. I never found out what it was. Definitely, 0:11:20.559 --> 0:11:22.120 if I was looking over my shoulder a little bit 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:26.600 more than I normally would, butt like something heavy dropped, 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:30.760 like one thing dropped, like something something, and yeah, kind 0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:35.280 of something to look on Devon's face. Yeah it was. 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:37.600 It was just a real soft just just sort of 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:40.240 a way off of the distance kind of. And I say, 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:48.040 I don't like somehow it lived through it. Well back 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:51.360 to vortex springs. Yeah, okay, So at the end or 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:55.000 the farthest reach that we know of the cave is 0:11:55.360 --> 0:12:00.280 only about ten inches high, which is really be the 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:03.840 really small, especially if you got a bunch of gear on. Yeah. Yeah, 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:05.920 and there's and we're gonna we'll talk a little bit 0:12:05.960 --> 0:12:09.319 about the diving and styles that are required. But people 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:14.000 are squeezing themselves through these cracks a while carrying their 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:18.800 oxygen supply. So it's it's not something to be taken lightly, 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:21.319 and it is definitely something that you need to know 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:25.319 how to do before you do it. Still, don't do it. Well, 0:12:25.320 --> 0:12:27.120 We've read enough, I know all of us have read 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:29.720 enough stories of people getting lost in caves. Some of 0:12:29.720 --> 0:12:32.320 them were lucky enough to be found alive. And this 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:35.600 is cave diving, not just people lost in in caves 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:41.360 that are filled with air. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's dangerous, 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:43.320 crazily dangerous. I think the only way I'd do that, 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:46.599 I'd take some fluorescent some fluorescent green cord with me 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:48.160 or something like that. So I got to just run 0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:51.280 a line the whole way. Cave divers do typically run 0:12:51.280 --> 0:12:54.160 a cord. They tend to run a cord behind them 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:57.080 so they can turn around and easily retrace their path 0:12:57.160 --> 0:12:59.760 out because it's very easy in a pitch black environment 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:03.880 to lose your way. Breaks or something like yeah, anything 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:07.760 like that. Now, for Vortech Springs, what they've done is 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:10.760 there was a there was a string of people who 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:13.520 drowned in the cave, got lost and out of air 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:17.439 and drowned, and so the state said we're gonna shut 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:20.360 you down. Probably, So what the owners of Vortex Springs 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:24.200 did is about three hundred feet in they put in 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:27.600 a gate. And that gate has it's a keyed gate. 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:32.360 If you present identification and certifications saying I can cave dive, 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:36.439 they will give you the key and let you in. Otherwise, 0:13:36.600 --> 0:13:39.680 it's meant to stop people from going into the cave 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:44.160 and getting lost and dying. Now, the how effective that 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:47.840 gate is, it's not really high tech. It looks like 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:51.120 a bunch of pieces of rebar that are jammed into 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:54.360 the stone and happens to have a lock and a 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:56.880 hinged gate on it. You know, my sense of it 0:13:56.960 --> 0:14:00.640 was that it is more to discourage than to actually 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:04.200 stop people. I mean, I think that if you're a 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:07.280 diver and you're kind of inexperienced and you're just thinking, oh, 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:09.480 just go to this cave blah blah blah, and you 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:12.120 encounter a thing that looks like that and there's a 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:14.360 stop sign, and it's just it's just sign that's got 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:17.640 the grim Reaper on it. Right, Yeah, you're you know, 0:14:17.720 --> 0:14:20.200 instead of just the sign, which would be pretty easy 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:25.720 to just kind of ignore, it's fun. Yeah, I think 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:28.600 it's more meant to be like that symbolic, hey, don't 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:32.080 go pass here unless you want to die. Yeah. The 0:14:32.760 --> 0:14:36.160 problem with the gate is it is easy to bypass, 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:39.160 or it is not difficult to bypass, I should say. 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:41.920 I wouldn't say it's easy, but people have been known 0:14:41.960 --> 0:14:44.480 to get around. Well, there's a video. Actually, there are 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:47.640 a couple of videos by this this guy um that 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:49.480 I watched, and I just wanted to bring it up 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:51.880 real quick. Actually, let me do real quick. Just I 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:54.000 just want to finish just two little bits of detail 0:14:54.040 --> 0:14:55.480 about the cave and then we can talk about that, 0:14:55.520 --> 0:14:59.080 because that's really important and interesting. But the only other 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:01.120 thing that I wanted people to know about when it 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:04.480 comes to the cave itself is that the depth of 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:08.880 the cave that we know is around a hundred fifty 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:12.680 feet deep. That's underwater, which would equate again that's forty five. 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:16.880 And that's a significant number because divers who tend to 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:21.360 go to a hundred and thirty feet or below typically 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:25.280 have to breathe not just straight a normal gas mix 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:28.560 of what's in the atmosphere, regular air mix. They've actually 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:31.320 got to do a special gas mixtures, and that's to 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:35.000 help stave off things for decompression issues, to bends exactly. 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:39.360 That was. I've been told that most divers actually always 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:44.240 turn around. Most A hundred thirty is the depth that 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:48.440 you can go. But if you want a safety cushion, correct, Yeah, yeah, 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:51.040 for a safety cushion, it's somewhere in that, in that range, 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:54.440 but that's the bottom. After that you have to be. 0:15:54.600 --> 0:15:56.840 You should be if you well, if you don't have 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:01.760 if you yeah, But and then you were gonna talk 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:03.720 about this the gate, I know because you were looking 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:05.280 at the video. Yeah, I was just going to bring 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:07.600 up a little bit um. There's some really really interesting 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:11.120 videos that you should watch if you can stand to Um, 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:13.720 it's a little I mean, it's a little creepy. I 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:16.680 you know, told I was telling you guys that I 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:21.360 have developed a new fear um. But one of these videos, 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:24.440 it's not totally clear what's happening. But in one of them, 0:16:24.480 --> 0:16:27.080 it was filmed by a guy named Nick. He and 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:29.600 he has a diving partner and they do these deep 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:32.680 water cave videos just all the time. They have a 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:37.400 bunch at Vortex Springs. One of them is Nick showing 0:16:37.400 --> 0:16:39.280 how easy it is to get over the gate um 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:41.720 and it doesn't take a about a minute. You know, 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:43.680 there's a little spot where you can just do. You 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:46.520 have to push your tank in before you um, and 0:16:46.520 --> 0:16:48.560 then you climb over and then you put your tank 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:51.520 back on um. And he does it a couple of times. 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:55.920 But that's it's really interesting. It's very easy. It looks 0:16:56.000 --> 0:16:58.160 very easy once you know how to do it. Yeah, 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:00.680 it looks very very easy to me, very very easy 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:03.080 to get caught on that thing. It's ground, but yeah, 0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:04.960 I mean it would be pretty easy to snag something 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:07.720 on it too. Yeah. Yeah, this is not something that 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:10.640 we're saying lightly to just go do what we're saying, don't. 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:13.840 This is yeah, please don't. It's just this is at 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:17.040 the from the videos we've seen from that time possible. 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:19.080 And I haven't heard anything at the gates ever been upgraded. 0:17:19.080 --> 0:17:21.199 But yeah, I suspect it has, but I don't know. 0:17:21.200 --> 0:17:24.800 I hope probably since then. Yeah, I mean, that's super interesting. 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:27.879 And I have more about the videos that the guys 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:30.760 posted later, but I'll talk about that one. It's relevant. Okay, 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:33.120 sounds perfect, So let's get back to the story because 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:36.040 that's enough about the cave itself. Yeah. Um, and there 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:38.960 are maps available on the internet, so to look at 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:40.880 one of those, we will probably have been postal link 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:46.960 might be one of the links. So Ben could have 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:50.680 been diving at Vortex Spring for up to four months. 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:53.560 He probably was. He probably was because he moved into 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:57.880 his parents house in Florida in April of that year, 0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:01.159 and so I imagine not to long after that, I 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:04.280 would I'm going to guess several weeks after that started diving. 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:06.159 He was. It was kind of a regular around there. 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:09.280 He was a total regular. They knew him. He was 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:12.960 there almost every day, absolutely, But what he did that 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:16.520 is a giant no. No. From everything I know about 0:18:16.560 --> 0:18:19.800 diving and everything I've ever read about diving is he 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:22.920 was so low diving now, you know, even even above 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:25.320 ground caving. He really don't want to do that alone. No, 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:28.000 there's because if something that's any kind of adventuring you 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:32.240 don't want to do alone, you don't. Uh, it's it's 0:18:32.320 --> 0:18:34.439 it's a no. It's you know, you always have you 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:37.560 dive buddy, you always go down with somebody else. But 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:43.080 according to accounts that came out after the fact, Ben 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:47.560 was either a little bit unapproachable, maybe came off as 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:51.560 a jerk, or people have described him as overconfident, and 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:55.439 so maybe that came through in a negative way. You know, 0:18:55.520 --> 0:18:58.120 somebody just read that wrong, and so he never got 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:00.560 a he never made a friend to his dive. But 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:04.560 I almost wonder if the overconfidence really kept people from 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:07.160 wanting to be his dive partner. In that it read 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:11.479 as reckless. You don't necessarily want well not just cocky, 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:14.280 but I mean genuinely reckless. You don't want to have 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:17.359 a dive partner who's always saying, hey, let's break the 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:20.199 rules and do all these things. And I don't you know, 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:22.480 I'm not as trained as I should be, but we're 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:24.960 going to do this thing anyway. That's not what you 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:27.000 want from a dive partner. You want somebody that you're like, 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:31.040 very confident in their abilities. I assume he he did. 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:33.520 He did seem to come off by some of the 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:37.720 stuff that I've read and watched. He said that his 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:41.399 skills were much more than they were in terms of 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:44.920 his experience. Um, because there's a movie that we'll talk 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:48.400 about where he had he was trying to pass himself 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:53.440 off almost as a dive instructor, which he was in 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:56.879 no way, shape or form qualified to be. He wanted 0:19:56.920 --> 0:19:59.920 to be, he wanted to he did, he wanted or later. 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:02.800 But the point is that he was acting as if 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:05.320 he was one, and I imagine that for people who 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:08.080 knew what was going on, that was really off putting. 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:12.000 So that that worked against him. That absolutely did not. 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:15.400 That behavior didn't work in his favor. Whether whether that's 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:17.240 what he did or not, I don't know. Well, the 0:20:17.280 --> 0:20:19.639 point is he wanted in by himself. Yeah, you never know. 0:20:19.720 --> 0:20:22.760 I didn't know, Ben. Obviously, he had only been there 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:24.760 for four months, so he maybe didn't have enough time 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:27.320 to really meet people, or maybe he just liked to 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:34.800 dive alone. No, that's that's absolutely possible. Absolutely good idea. No. Um, 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:37.159 So he was like we said, though he's he's certified 0:20:37.160 --> 0:20:40.960 to dive in open water, he's not certified to dive 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:44.439 in caves. Uh. And as we said, he had he 0:20:44.600 --> 0:20:46.720 decided that what he wanted to do was become a 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:49.879 dive instructor. He had also expressed to his family that 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:52.720 he wanted to learn to cave dive and then he 0:20:52.760 --> 0:20:56.280 wanted to open his own dive business. Yeah, I didn't want. 0:20:56.280 --> 0:20:58.320 One way to learn the cave divers to do it 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:02.320 with the qualified instructor. Another way to do it is 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:05.760 to read a lot and then just do it. I'm sorry, 0:21:05.880 --> 0:21:08.919 I should be clear. I'm making a joke. Yes, please 0:21:08.960 --> 0:21:10.679 do not do that. Do not do that. Okay. So 0:21:12.359 --> 0:21:15.440 if you want, I want people who are interested in 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:18.600 this to do this, which is to look up technical 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:22.160 diving and look at the certifications that you have to get. 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:26.840 And it is a huge list with a certain number 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:29.720 of hours of every one of them before you can 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:32.240 be and have that to your technical diving record. You 0:21:32.280 --> 0:21:35.080 can have that and say I can do this, Okay, 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:39.760 it's all hours based. Ben wanted to do this thing. 0:21:40.280 --> 0:21:44.760 So he was going underwater and logging tons and tons 0:21:44.800 --> 0:21:49.520 and tons of hours at a breakneck speed to say, 0:21:49.560 --> 0:21:53.240 so if a certification takes a hundred hours, He's like, well, 0:21:53.280 --> 0:21:57.160 if I go six hours a day every day, I'll 0:21:57.200 --> 0:22:00.320 be there in no time flat. You know, take me 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:03.480 less in two weeks. I can totally make this happen. Well, 0:22:03.480 --> 0:22:05.439 that's not the way that you're supposed to do it, 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:08.159 because the reason that it takes hours is so that 0:22:08.240 --> 0:22:13.200 you learn how to do certain things. They become automatic 0:22:13.280 --> 0:22:17.280 reactions and automatic functions so that when you're in a 0:22:17.320 --> 0:22:23.320 catastrophic situation, you automatically react in the proper way. And 0:22:23.359 --> 0:22:26.040 that wasn't what he was doing. He was just piling 0:22:26.119 --> 0:22:29.520