MIAMI, Florida (20 Oct 2003) -- It has been one year and one week since free diver Audrey Mestre drowned trying to set a world depth record in the waters off the Dominican Republic. Authorities there declared the death of Mestre, 28, of North Bay Village, an accident. But the finger-pointing continues unabated over who was responsible. Monday -- one day after Mestre's husband, Francisco ''Pipin'' Ferreras, 41, commemorated his loss with a no-limits free dive to 558 feet off Cabo San Lucas, Mexico -- came new accusations from Carlos Serra, former president of the International Association of Free Divers, who helped organize Mestre's fatal record attempt. In an e-mailed news release, Serra -- once a close friend -- blamed Ferreras for failing to fill a compressed-air cylinder that was supposed to inflate a lift bag to bring Mestre to the surface. Mestre lost consciousness during a lengthy and halting ascent from a depth of 561 feet. She spent nearly nine minutes underwater, and efforts to revive her at the surface failed. Serra's statement said the nearly empty cylinder was not due to a mechanical problem. Wrote Serra: ''Only one person was, as always, in absolute control of the tank. . . . That person is Pipin Ferreras.'' Serra called for a formal investigation into Mestre's death. CHARGES DENIED Ferreras, meanwhile, blames Serra for failing to fill the tank. ''He can blame me for whatever he wants. He was in charge,'' Ferreras said in a telephone interview Thursday. ''Many people asked him if I filled the tank. He said I did, but he never asked me. I checked if there was pressure in the tank, and there was pressure in the tank. It was half-empty after the accident. He forgot to check it out. There was not enough pressure to lift [Mestre] from the bottom. It happened to her and to me many times during practice dives.'' But the circumstances of Mestre's death must have heightened Ferreras' preparations for last week's free dive. Ferreras stationed safety divers from the surface all the way to the targeted depth, at least four of them breathing from scuba tanks. Those measures were in sharp contrast to the day Mestre died when only one scuba diver, Pascal Bernabe, was available to rescue her. | | "Hey baby! Wanna ride tandem on my sled?" Risking decompression sickness, Bernabe carried the unconscious Mestre from more than 400 feet deep halfway to the surface to hand her over to Ferreras. Free divers were stationed at the surface, but no one was posted mid-water to relieve Bernabe. Although Ferreras said he spent several weeks checking out dive systems and procedures, he eschewed measures adopted by a rival free-diving organization, AIDA, for world-record attempts. AIDA rules call for safety divers to be equipped with independent lift-bag systems that they can attach to the wet suit of an unconscious diver, rocketing him or her to the surface in less than a minute. Fortunately, Ferreras was able to hold his breath for 2 minutes 40 seconds and encountered no mechanical problems. ''I was sure the dive would be OK,'' he said afterward. ''My mind was set for that. [Audrey] was protecting me.'' The tragic love story caught the attention of Titanic movie director James Cameron, who used manned submersibles with underwater cameras to record Ferreras' dive last week. MORE DIVE PLANS With the media spotlight still focused on him, Ferreras could retire from record-setting and concentrate on screenplays and biographies. Instead, he plans to dive even deeper over the next three to four years, despite embarking on what most consider middle age. ''I'm going to keep diving now, go to 600 feet,'' he said. ''I want to do a tandem dive to 151 meters [495 feet]. I'm looking for someone to do the dive with me.'' His last tandem dive, 328 feet in 2001, was with Mestre. |
