HAMPTON, Tennessee (3 Sep 2004) -- Dive team members have started to raise the dive platform that will bring Jerry Hall back to the surface five days after his dive began. Hall had been scheduled to surface at 8:25 am EST Thursday with a new world record of 94 hours and nine minutes. But Hall and his dive team decided to extend the dive 26 hours thanks to extensive preparations that have made the dive safer and more comfortable than his 2002 record dive of 71 hours, 39 minutes, 42 seconds. On that dive, Hall suffered severe pain in the later part of the dive when his hands and feet shriveled. This time Hall is using a product called Sorbelene which has proven extremely effective in protecting his hands and feet. According to Dive Captain Jim Bean, it will take eight hours to bring Hall back to the surface and he will be monitored closely for several days. "He will be brought up very slowly and his activities on the surface will have to be monitored and controlled for several days after the dive," said Bean. "The immediate impact of gravity after being underwater for so long is the feeling of having fourteen Cadillacs parked on your back," he added. | | Jerry Hall dines alone Laying face down on his dive platform, Hall is expected to break the surface of Watauga Lake at Fish Springs Marina at 10:15 am EST, exactly 120 hours after starting the dive. © CDNN - CYBER DIVER NEWS NETWORK |
