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Topics: News, World News
Kit Roberts
An expert has revealed he warned an ill-fated diver about exploring the same deadly diving spot which featured in Netflix documentary The Deepest Breath.
Back in 2000, Yuri Lipski was just 22 years old when he attempted descent into the Blue Hole in Dahab in Egypt.
The following day his body was recovered by technical diver Tarek Omar, known as 'The Elder Diver'.
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Tarek has become extremely familiar with the Blue Hole over his technical diving career. Despite the risk, it remains hugely popular with its abundance of marine life and technical challenges.
However, Tarek has also taken on an extremely morbid unofficial role. It's Tarek who voluntarily descends into the hole to recover the bodies of other divers who have died there.
While Tarek has lost count of the number of bodies he has recovered, he remembers recovering Yuri. The 22-year-old had had an uncontrolled descent which had taken him all the way to the bottom of the hole.
In a panic he had tried to activate a buoyancy aid, but this failed and he died.
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His final dive was captured on a camera he had worn, and which Tarek found was still working when he brought Yuri's body back to the surface.
Tarek described his unpleasant task to Scene Arabia: “Recovering bodies is a case by case thing; I do it pro bono.
“It is a very critical and difficult thing to do – it requires more than just being a technical diver, it takes more than experience. It is very hard because you dive deep and you stay down to locate the remains."
Tarek had also warned Yuri against making his dive. Unfortunately for Yuri, he went ahead with the dive and paid a very heavy price.
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The Blue Hole is a hugely popular place for scuba divers. It is a submarine sinkhole which shelves off extremely quickly and is very near to the shore. It drops down to a depth of around 100 metres at its deepest, and has two connections to the ocean.
One is a submerged section around 6m deep over the top, called The Saddle. However, there is another pass out into the ocean, a hole part way down the rock separating the sinkhole from the ocean called The Arch. It is possible to swim through this, though it can be very dangerous if you don't take the proper precautions.
The deadly spot was recently the subject of new Netflix documentary The Deepest Breath.
The documentary tells the story of two free divers, Alessia Zecchini and Stephen Keenan, as they team up to break world records in the sport. Tragically, Keenan lost his life while saving Zecchini.
It is thought that as many as 200 divers have died at the site in recent years.