I almost died last night.
To say I was within seconds of death, and I escaped is no exaggeration. It is just the truth. I am safe at home now, sitting in my den, but I am still shaking with fear… I still jump at every sound, every branch that scrapes my window stops my heart in my chest…. Even though I know I am safe… I am still terrified!
What I did was stupid. I know that. I knew it before I even did it how idiotic it was, but I could not resist. I had an opportunity, and I had to take it, so I did. And it nearly cost me my life.
Hudson Sink had been opened by someone, and the county had not come in and locked it back up again.
Hudson Sink is the name that was given to a sinkhole that sat on the side of US 19 across from the post office. As you drive by it, it looks like a small pond, complete with a few lilly pads and cattails hugging the edges. Just one of a million little lakes of water that dotted the area everywhere. What makes Hudson Sink so special, however, is that it is so deep, it hits the Florida Aquifer over 100 feet below the surface… miles and miles of crystal clear water that flows through limestone caves and caverns that flow out to the Gulf of Mexico. It is a scuba divers paradise. It is also a death trap.
When I was in school, a senior by the name of Donnie Miller had decided to travel through the caverns and come out in the Gulf. Professional cave divers had done that exact same feat not two months before. Donnie was a very good diver, but he was no professional.
I remember the news stories as the reporters stood at the edge of Hudson Sink, talking into their long, thin microphones, saying things like “No body has been discovered yet” and “Our hopes and prayers are with Donnie’s family tonight”.
And then, two days after Donnie went missing, they found his gear in the back corner of a limestone cave. They never found his body. Searchers assumed Donnie had run out of air, and removed his gear for one last, desperate attempt to find a way out of the labyrinth of caverns that had a thousand dead ends, but only one exit. Before Donnie left his gear though, he did take his diving knife and scratch a last message on the bright blue paint of his air tank…“tell family love them”. That was it, a last message from a kid that knew he was going to die to his family. “tell family love them”. The TV stations showed his senior picture on the news for a week, his confident, smiling face full of hope and promise. All thrown away for nothing.
Pasco County, where the sink is located, decided to lock it down. A large iron grate was welded into place over the main entrance to the caves, 86 feet below the surface. A rod iron gate was welded onto that, to allow access to the caves if ever needed, but it was locked with a large padlock that they changed out every year. Never again, would anyone get lost in the caves and die in Hudson Sink.
At least, that was the idea. the reality is that every once in a while, someone would go down and cut the lock off, and explore the caves. When it was discovered the caves were open, the county would go back down and slap on a new lock. In the few days it took the county to do that however, it was open season for cave diving in Hudson Sink… and divers like myself jumped at the chance.
When I got the message from Bryan, my friend I dive with, it just said “Sink Open!”
“When!” I replied.
“Thursday. 2AM” came back, and we were on! I love diving at night, and it added to the thrill of diving Hudson Sink.
Thursday about noon, however, Bryan called and bailed on me. He was sick. So, like a true and complete idiot, I decided to dive the sink alone… at 2 AM.
God what an idiot I am.
What I am going to tell you now, what I am going to explain… it is 100% the truth. I shiver just thinking about it. I dread even writing it, but I have to tell someone. People NEED to know.
I arrived at the sink at about 1:45. There was a truck already parked there. It had been there for almost two days. I hoped it was a county vehicle put there to scare off divers and not an actual diver that never came back up. Either way, the sink had not been open for almost 2 years and I was not going to miss this opportunity. I geared up and entered the sink at almost 2:10.
The water was cold (72 degrees year round as all Florida springs are) and my flashlight beam cut through the clear water like a laser. I slowly sunk to the grate and saw that yes, indeed the lock had been cut open and the limestone caverns were able to be accessed.
I had butterflies in my stomach as I slipped through the bars, nothing but another 30 feet of clear water below that ended in a cavern, with tunnels, caverns and caves spidering out in all directions.
It was one of the most beautiful things you could ever see. Almost otherworldly…. absolutely breathtaking… and as dangerous as hell.
As I reached the bottom and shone my light around, my light bounced back at me off of something about 100 yards in one of the smaller caverns. Curious, I made my way towards it, while making sure to avoid the other caverns and caves that opened up on either side of the tunnel I was heading down. It would be SO easy to get turned around and lost in here!
When I got close, I saw it was a pile of diving gear. Tank, mask, fins, all scattered around in a small area. I immediately had a bad feeling that this may have been the owner of the truck parked above us. I looked around, but did not see a body.
It was right then that I decided I have had enough of this, and was going to head topside. I turned and started out the tunnel, when I felt a tug on my right fin, a sharp, strong yank that jerked my leg backwards and prevented me from leaving the cavern.
In a panic, i shone my light backwards to see what it was… fish? eel? Hell, even a gator?
No.
It was a hand. A pale, thin hand and arm with long, grasping fingers. My heart froze as my flashlight beam slowly followed the arm to the body.
There… in a crevice that led deeper into the caves, it was. No diving gear. No mask. No clothing of any kind. Its long arm had snaked out through a crack in the cave wall and grabbed my leg, yanking it back toward the crack, keeping me trapped. Its body was pale, almost a transparent white, it was so thin its ribs protruded out from its skin, but it was the face that froze my heart…
God, it was the face.
Pale, with a mouth filled with crooked, broken teeth, strands of thin, wispy hair dancing in the current.. its nose was mostly gone, leaving just a cavernous hole in its skull. Its eyes were black. true black. No iris, no white at all, just bulging black orbs that glimmered in the flashlights beam. It was human, or it WAS human at one time…
I screamed. even with the regulator in my mouth I screamed and flailed against the hold this thing had on my leg. In response, the things grip tightened. I felt its long, jagged fingernails dig into my leg, puncturing the skin and holding me tight.
While I was thrashing about, trying to free myself, it took the opportunity to give a mighty heave, and drag my leg completely back into the crevice it was hiding in.
I was well and truly trapped.
This made me panic and thrash about more, screaming and sucking in deep gulps of air as I did so. No matter how I tried, how strong I flailed about, the things grip only got tighter.
I was going to die.
I looked at my air gauge in a panic… it was already red lined. I had minutes of air left.
I was going to die.
I was about to give one last herculean effort into breaking free when i saw the pile of diving gear on the cave floor. It then dawned on me.
This is how it kills. It holds you there until you drown, then it… well, then it did whatever it does to the prey it catches.
I only had one chance, and it was a slim one. I played dead.
I took the deepest breath I could, and held it as I made my whole body go limp and lifeless.
The thing did not lessen its grip.
I just waited… seconds turned to almost a minute… I really wanted to breathe in some fresh air but I just stayed perfectly still.
I felt the thing rip off my fin. Oh god… what was it going to do? I still remained lifeless.
I felt the grasping fingers of its free hand slowly, almost carefully unzip and remove my diving boot.
Oh god, oh God… What was it… I needed to breathe but what is it doing???
My lungs were on fire. I thought I was going to have to breathe or die, when the thing lessened its grip on my leg, grabbing my foot with both cold, clammy hands, and then I felt its jagged, cracked teeth bite into the fleshy side of my foot and rip a chunk of meat out.
It was then that it let go for a second, and I lurched forward with all of my might, popping my leg free of the crevice. I exhaled and drew in a great breath from the last air in my tank.. I shot like a rocket out of the cave, shining my light back through the bloody water to the crevice where I saw the face looking at me as I swam away… its black eyes shining and glimmering in the beam of the flashlight.
And as I shot to the surface, bends be damned, I realized… As ghastly as he had become, this creature was once a person. If it had been younger, with thick brown hair…
As I broke to the surface, laughing and crying at the same time, I was certain of 2 things.
I would never, EVER put scuba gear on again. And
Donnie miller was not dead. I am not sure what he is now, but he is not dead.