EMATHLA, Florida (15 Nov 2008) — The Marion County Sheriff's Office Dive Team with assistance from two professional civilian divers is searching the depths of the Forty Fathom Grotto for a 25-year-old man from Pace who has been missing since early Saturday morning. Detective Rhonda Stroup said Sean Patrick Spiegel - along with Matthew James Berry, 22, Nicole Wilkerson, 23, Doug Masters, 24, and William Sanders, 29 - went to a restaurant where they had dinner and cocktails between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. Friday in Ocala. After dinning, the five returned to the place they were staying, a red log cabin at the Forty Fathom Grotto, 9487 N.W. 115th Ave. Around 1:30 a.m., they decided to do a night dive. Masters, Wilkerson, Spiegel and Berry put on their scuba gear and went diving, leaving Sanders behind for safety reasons. Sheriff's officials say that's the normal procedure. According to Deputy Francisco Perez's report, the foursome, with the aid of a rope, went under water and descended about 104 feet. The dive lasted around 20 minutes before they decided to ascend. Berry told the deputy that he told his partners to go up, but Spiegel, using hand signals, said no. Spiegel signaled that he had six more minutes. The rest went up, leaving Spiegel below. When the group reached 70 feet, Berry said, he didn't see Spiegel. Berry told the deputy that he and Masters went down to the 104 feet marker looking for him, but didn't find him. They continued to search but still couldn't find him. Perez noted in his report that Berry told him sometimes Spiegel would let go of the rope as a prank. However, that usually lasted about five minutes. Scott Evans, a diving instructor who taught Spiegel and knew him, was dumbfounded when he arrived at the site and heard the news. "He wasn't some reckless kid out to prove anything. He took diving seriously," Evans said. Evans said Spiegel was at the grotto in August and became a diving instructor. "As a student, he was a standout," Evans said. Berry, Wilkerson, Masters and Sanders, declined comment. Deputy Edward Graham, a three-year member of the Sheriff's Office Dive Team, said the water is about 240 feet deep. For safety reasons, they stayed above 100 feet. They didn't find any signs of Spiegel during their morning search. | | Search teams are trying to find a 25-year-old man who disappeared while scuba diving at Forty Fathom Grotto. In the afternoon, Daniel Patterson and Eric Hary, members of a professional underwater international cave recovery team, put on their scuba gear to search of Spiegel. Both men said they're independent divers with close to 50 years of teaching experience between them and are rated to dive as deep as 340 feet. At 2:15 p.m., Hary had just returned from a 57-minute dive. He searched the area from 100 feet to 130 feet and did not see anything, he said. At about 2:30 p.m., Patterson returned to the surface after searching upward from 200 feet. He said the visibility was very poor. "I could have swam by him and wouldn't see him," Patterson said. It's not the first time deputies have responded to the grotto to recover someone missing underwater. Earlier this year, Rebecca Harden, 54, from Hickson, Tenn., was with a group scuba diving at the grotto, and as they were coming to the surface they stopped at different levels. At one of the stages, according to officials, the instructor noticed that Harden was not with the group. He said he saw bubbles and descended to where she was and then brought her to the surface. Marion County Fire Rescue responded to the scene, and Harden was taken to Munroe Regional Medical Center. Rescuers performed CPR on her from the time they arrived on scene to the hospital. She was later pronounced deceased. |
