Double Depth-Record Bids End in Tragedies

During the last week of September, a Bulgarian technical diving instructor-trainer died in Greece while attempting to set a new depth record for women by diving to 754 feet (231m). Teodora Balabanova (45) died, while her husband (47), who had accompanied her, is now in the hospital in critical condition. The planned dive using trimix as a bottom gas and travel gas was intended to have 5.5 hours of decompression stops, but she became disoriented at depth and had to be pulled to the surface by support divers, while her husband cut short his mandated deco to 3 hours.

The Guinness World Record for deepest female scuba-dive was set at 718 feet (221m) in 2004 by South African diver Verna van Schaik in Boesmansgat Cave, South Africa.

Only days earlier, a well-known male Polish technical diver, Waclaw Lejko, failed to surface after attempting a record-breaking 902-foot (275m) dive in Lake Garda, Italy. His body was later recovered by a remotely operated vehicle at a depth of 754 feet (230m).