Renowned diver dies while exploring deepest underwater cave in US, officials say

A renowned diver recently died while exploring an underwater cave system in Texas, believed to be the deepest of its kind in the United States, researchers say.

Brett Hemphill, of Florida, began his dive Oct. 4 at 10:45 a.m., friend and researcher Andrew Pitkin said in a social media post. He was last seen tying off a guide rope at a depth of about 570 feet, but the team he was with “became separated,” and Hemphill “never returned from the dive.”

Hemphill had been exploring and mapping aquatic caverns for more than two decades and served as president of Karst Underwater Research, a nonprofit organization dedicated to researching and protecting underwater ecosystems. He also set a record in 2013 while exploring Phantom Springs Cave in Texas, swimming nearly 8,000 feet into the cave at a depth of 465 feet, according to Karst.

“We worked with him a lot over the years and had a lot of adventures. I’ll forever be grateful to have known him and called him a friend,” Emmy-winning photographer Becky Kagan Schott said in a Facebook post. “Brett always pushed me but never in a bad way. I’m better because I knew him.”

Phantom Springs is believed to be the deepest underwater cave in the country. Even 10 years after his record dive, the cave continued drawing Hemphill back.

It’s not clear what went wrong on Hemphill’s final dive, but fellow divers traveled thousands of miles to the cave to help, Pitkin said. His body was recovered Oct. 8.

In addition to being the deepest, Phantom Springs is among the longest, according to Texas A&M University.

“You have to swim horizontally for over a mile at an average depth of 30 feet before arriving at the spot where the cave passage begins to stairstep down, getting deeper and larger all the time,” Tom Iliffe, a professor of marine biology, said in 2013.

How deep it goes is unknown.

“The cave water is significantly warmer than what would normally be expected for this area, thus suggesting this geothermally warmed water almost certainly originates from deep below the Earth’s surface,” Iliffe said.

Few are allowed to dive at Phantom Springs and permission is granted for research purposes.

Phantom Springs is near Balmorhea, roughly 110 miles southwest of Odessa.

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