Free Diver Dies Trying to Break

World Record

BY ABC NEWS
Oct. 17

Champion free diver Audrey Mestre took a single breath,

then dove 561 feet to try to try to break a world record. But
the 28-year-old French woman did not make it back up
alive.
She blacked out and died Saturday after her plunge into
deep waters near La Romana, 81 miles east of Santo
Domingo, Dominican Republic.
Mestre was attached to a 200-pound weight mounted on a
steel cable to help her get to the proper depth. She was
trying to break the "no limits" dive world record of 531.5
feet set by her husband, Francisco "Pipin" Ferreras in
January 2000. Together, they were the most famous freediving couple in the world.
But on Mestre's way up to the surface during that fateful
dive, she blacked out at a depth of 300 feet. A safety diver
activated an emergency inflatable device, and rushed her
to the surface using his inflatable jacket. Ferreras
desperately tried to revive her using mouth-to-mouth, but it
was too late.

The woman who had become the world's best free diver
had died. The dive was only supposed to take three
minutes, and she had been underwater more than nine
minutes without oxygen.
Dangerous Sport Requires Training
Free diving is dangerous, and in some cases deadly sport.
There are about 5,000 free divers around the world, and an
estimated 100 die each year. The divers say there is a
sense of euphoria being so far down, and liken the
experience to being in outer space. It puts the body through
great physiological changes, which in some cases leads to
death.
Unlike scuba divers, free divers do not use oxygen tanks,
and instead, simply take a deep breath and dive at least
400 feet, the equivalent of a 40-story skyscraper. Free
divers basically push their bodies to the limit: as they
descend hundreds of feet, their heart rates slow to as low
as 14 beats a minute, their lungs shrink and blood surges
from the extremities to the heart and the brain.
To counteract the impact, divers must train in proper
breathing techniques. The lower third of the lungs contain
two-thirds of the blood supply, and it is the blood that holds
the oxygen and carries it throughout the body.

So divers must use the muscles of their diaphragm when

they breathe, to get the oxygen into that lower part of the
lungs.
The proper breathing allows free divers to lower their heart
rate, reduce the carbon dioxide levels in their body, and
make room to fill every possible space with air.
Blackout Biggest Risk
To get back to the surface, divers inflate a balloon that
quickly carries them to the surface. Those last few feet, as
your body readjusts to the nearing-the-surface pressure, are
especially risky.
"The biggest risk is shallow water blackout," free diving
teacher Kirk Krack diver told Good Morning America in an
interview that aired in Oct. 2000. "That's upon your return
to the surface. You've used up so much oxygen that your
body senses the low level and it decides to conserve
oxygen for you. And it basically shuts you off, turns the
switch off and you go unconscious."
Blackouts like Mestre's account for 99.9 percent of deaths,
Krack said.
Ferreras told WABC's Bill Ritter that he is broken up about
his wife's death, but believes she died doing something she
loved. Mestre was a French university student studying
marine physiology when she met Ferreras.

"I chose him as the subject of my testing because he was

the world champion free diver," Mestre told Ritter in an
interview that aired in March on 20/20 Downtown. She fell
in love with him in "about two days," she said.
As a posthumous honor, the International Association of
Free Divers, a Miami-based organization that monitored
Mestre's dive, will recognize her 558-foot unofficial practice
attempt on Wednesday as the new world record.
A champion diver himself, Ferreras said he will not be
deterred from diving again at least one more time. He is
planning to do a dive in Mestre's memory next year.
"I'm not going to break her record," he told Ritter. "I'm
going to reach the same depth she reached in training
After that dive, I'm going to retire."