My name is Jack, Jack Polly, I am an underwater photographer. I was recently sent on a job to a lake in southern Kentucky. This lake just so happens to be a flooded mining town, and my job was to explore and take pictures of the buildings to show water damage over time. At its deepest point, it is 197 feet. I and a team of divers were getting ready to go when something knocked against the boat knocking over one of the less experienced divers. Now you have to understand we were sitting on the edge but this was still a forceful hit. The diver came back up, a tad dazed but over all fine. The rest of us went in and we started our descent. After a little while we had to turn on our high powered flashlights. This water was murky, so much that I could barely make out my hand in front of my face, thankfully my flashlight gave a little help.
We made it about 100 feet when we started hearing noises. We couldn’t make out its location, the sound was that of almost a whale’s call, but the noise was deeper in tone. We made it not 5 feet deeper before we all felt something rush past us. We all relayed it to each other, we ended up deciding that it was a bass that didn’t know what time of year it was. We swam deeper and deeper, we eventually made it to the bottom only to find no town. We started traveling with the current, and when we didn’t find anything after 5 minutes, we turned back.
We finally made it to the town and I started taking photos and the divers started exploring. I took the pictures and started exploring. When I looked at my watch we had already reached the 5 minute mark. I called for everyone to regroup and get ready to head up. Everyone except the one who fell out of the boat. I started calling for him on the comms but no answer. By this point we had been down there for 7 minutes so we decided to start heading up without him. As we moved we started hearing the sound again. We reached the 150 mark when the lead diver’s tank started leaking from the valve. I started to tighten the valve. The air started leaking from the bottom, then the side, then his mask started cracking. I looked at his pressure gauge and saw it showed he was at 318 feet, about 10 atmospheres of pressure.
Just then it all stopped and his gauge lowered down to 150 feet. We had to get him up to the surface before he suffocated. We started rising at the rate of 40 feet per minute. After 3 minutes the main diver was out of air, he started sinking from losing energy. I tried to carry him but when we made it to the 10 foot mark we had to decompress. I sat there as he passed out in my arms, but after two minutes, I felt his heart slow. At this point I was just trying to bring his body up to the surface. I felt something brush past my lower leg. I saw one of the two divers left get pulled down, he started screaming through the mic. He first started screaming for us to get it off, then he started screaming his depth, 100, 120, 140, 160, 180, 200, 210, 220.
He just kept going, he didn’t stop till the static cut in, he reached 380 when he stopped. By this point we had only been at the decompression stop for 4 minutes. The other diver swam over only to be blocked by this massive thing, it almost looked like a wall from my view. In my panic I dropped the lead divers body. I went to reach for him but the other diver was gone, he was nowhere to be found. I decided the best option was to just swim for it, I swam up and surfaced, motioning for the boat. I got in the boat, completely hysteric. I was able to calm down and explain the entire trip. They called it up to me being in shock. They looked and noticed that I was pouring blood from my leg, apparently that thing that brushed up against me, also took a huge chunk of my leg.
They rushed me to the hospital, where I was told that my leg was completely dead, and would have to be amputated at the knee. I was also told that because I didn’t decompress completely I had decompression sickness. I now sit in the ER with a missing right leg, and I’m dizzy beyond comprehension. I’m going to rest now, I need to think this over.