This hole has killed 16 people

there is a small hole in the ground in australia that has claimed the lives of at least 16 people today i'm going to tell you what's inside of that hole but before we get into today's story if you're a fan of the strange dark and mysterious delivered in story format then you come to the right place because that's all we do and we upload three or four times every week so if that's of interest to you please offer to take the like button out to a beautiful restaurant outside of town and when they get out of the car tell them you only said you're gonna take them there and then drive off also please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads alright let's get into today's [Music] story in 1938 a farmer in southeastern australia decided to bring his horses to a watering hole on the other side of his large property as he was leading the horses across this big wide open field one of his horses suddenly just collapsed to the ground the farmer ran over to see what was going on but as soon as he got over to it the horse had stood back up again and seemed totally unhurt the farmer was puzzled because he had no idea why the horse fell in the first place and so he looked down to see if maybe it tripped on something and he saw on the ground right beneath the horse was this small hole and so he moved his horse out of the way and then when he came back to look at this thing he saw it was only maybe a foot across but when he peered down into it he saw it was very deep and so he got down on his hands and knees to get a closer look and when his eyes adjusted he could not believe what he was seeing 10 or 15 feet below the surface was this huge pool of clear water the horse had just stepped into the roof of an underground cave and so the farmer was really excited to see how big this cave was and so he grabbed all his horses and he brought them back to the stable and he got this long measuring rope with a weight at the end of it so he runs back out to the hole he puts the weight into the hole and he begins paying out this rope and so down it goes 10 feet 20 feet 30 feet it just keeps on going and going until finally the weight hits solid land at 120 feet and so the farmer is like wow this is a huge cave so he pulls it back up thinking that's the bottom but in reality it wasn't it actually extended down almost 300 additional feet the farmer and his horse had just accidentally found one of the most beautiful and deadly fresh water caves in the world called the shaft the reason it's called the shaft is because the only way in or out of this underwater cave is through this hole in the middle of this field that this horse created and it's literally a shaft that goes down 18 feet until it reaches the surface of this massive underground body of water the opening to this shaft is so narrow that cave divers they can't get into it with their gear on their backs so they literally need to be lowered into this cave by themselves and then their gear is lowered down after them and they put it on while they're treading water the solid ground that the farmer's weighted line had touched at 120 feet when he believed he had reached the bottom of the cave what he had actually touched was the top of something called the rock pile the rock pile is basically this huge underwater pyramid that looks like a rock pile that sits at the bottom in the middle of this huge underwater cave and from the top of this rock pile you can go down it in all different directions but once you get to the bottom there's only two tunnels to choose from there's one that goes west basically down at an angle that dead ends at 260 feet and then on the other side of this underwater pyramid is the eastern tunnel and that's much more treacherous it goes down at a more steep angle to 400 feet the few elite divers that have explored the deepest recesses of this cave say there are three distinct stages to it stage one is from the surface down to 120 feet the top of the rock pile during this stage the diver swims unobstructed in beautiful clear water with sunlight poking through the hole it's a very easy section of the cave and there's a safety line that's anchored from the surface straight down to the top of the rock pile so you have something to hold on to as you go down and back up stage two is where things get a bit dicey stage two begins at the top of the rock pile and extends down all the way to the bottom of the westerly tunnel at 260 feet where it dead ends or down to the 200 foot mark of the easterly tunnel where you come to something called the drop off ledge and it's quite literally a ledge in the middle of this tunnel where beyond it there's a fairly steep drop off and it leads down to an area that's so treacherous it's got its own stage starting with stage two and then with stage three there is no safety line to guide you in the direction you need to go so you're on your own as soon as you reach the top of the rock pile and so you make your way down any direction you want down the rock pile until you reach either of these tunnels and as soon as you go into them you immediately start to lose visibility because the sunlight cannot penetrate all the way into these tunnels and so the diver becomes increasingly reliant on their flashlight as such they have to be very careful as they navigate down stage two to not bump into the walls because doing so will knock the limestone silt off of the walls it will create a cloud of it in their face it will blind them it's like being in fog where a flashlight can't push through it and so the diver has to either wait for the silt to clear which could take a very long time or they have to swim blind also anyone entering stage two and stage three they can't breathe regular air out of their tanks there's too much nitrogen in regular air the deeper you dive the more nitrogen your body will absorb and if you have too much nitrogen in your system it can give you something called nitrogen narcosis which is like being really drunk and in extreme cases people have been known to take their mouthpiece out and inhale water believing they're on the surface or they'll confuse the direction up with the direction down and to get to the surface they will swim straight down until it's too late and they can't get back up again and so divers that are going to be in stage 2 or stage 3 of this cave will breathe a special mix of gases that are low in nitrogen the final stage of the shaft stage 3 is just from the 200 foot mark of the easterly cave so that drop off ledge all the way down to the bottom at 400 feet this stage is unbelievably dangerous as soon as you drop off that ledge all the sunlight goes away it is pitch black and the tunnel narrows considerably and stays incredibly narrow in fact many times divers have to squeeze themselves past sections where the rocks are too close together and so because you're inherently bumping into the walls all through stage three you're pretty much guaranteed to be silted out the entire time at this depth nitrogen narcosis is virtually guaranteed even if you're breathing a special low nitrogen mix of gases and so divers need to be ready to abort the dive at any moment if they feel symptoms coming on once the diver has turned around and is making their return trip but they're still in the third stage section of the cave they need to be careful of false stones these are offshoots on the ceiling only in this third stage that look like the way out and especially when things are silted out and it's dark you're low on oxygen you might be panicking it'd be very easy to confuse these with the way out but in fact these false domes are exactly what their name implies they are false they are dead ends they go nowhere stage 3 is reserved exclusively for extremely experienced cave divers who get special permission in 1973 eight divers got permission to dive the first and second stages of the shaft cave they did not get permission to dive the third stage of the cave on may 28th of that year the eight divers arrived in that big open field near the cape opening and began prepping their gear their plan was to dive down all the way to the edge of the drop-off ledge so looking into the third stage and then once they got there look around for a minute and then turn around and head back up to the surface these eight divers were experienced divers but their experience was all in open water environments none of them had dove in a cave and so they were confident divers but they were a little bit naive they believed the dive down to the edge of the third stage was going to be fairly routine and would just be simple and fun but before any of them had even gotten into the water they had already made a critical mistake instead of jamming their bottle with the special low nitrogen mixed gas that they would need since they were going into stage two and so that's a requirement instead of doing that they just jam their bottles with regular air so they were basically guaranteeing that they would get nitrogen narcosis but once they had all their gear prepped they made their way over to the entrance to the shaft and one by one they were lowered down into the water and their gear would follow and then once all of them were all jocked up they grabbed the safety line and they began their descent it only took about two minutes to get down to the top of the rock pile and there they spent about five minutes taking pictures of each other before heading down the eastern tunnel three of the divers were siblings glenn stephen and christine who were 25 22 and 19 respectively and glenn remembers after they made their way all the way down the eastern tunnel and they reached the drop-off ledge he remembers seeing his sister his brother and all the other divers everyone seemed just fine everyone's just looking over this ledge they're taking turns kind of peering down into this black abyss that is stage three and then after five minutes or so glenn looked at his gauge and he saw his air was getting fairly low not emergency situation but it was time to leave and everybody else had the same amount of air as he did and so everybody else was running low on air and so glenn was about to grab his sister who was several feet right in front of him she was still looking over the ledge down into stage three but when he reached out to grab her she and all the other divers just suddenly jumped forward and dove straight down into the abyss out of sight they dove into the stage three section this was not something that glenn was tracking anybody doing this was not something anyone said they were going to do this was not part of the dive this was very dangerous and they weren't allowed to go down there and so glenn immediately swam down after them to try to grab his sister and stop her or grab his brother or grab any of them but as soon as he went over that ledge he saw it was totally pitch black and it was completely salted out from all these divers suddenly launching over the edge and so glenn knows he's not gonna find them in the silt it's also very dangerous for him alone to just dive down there and so he figures you know what i'm sure they're fine they probably plan this out and they're just gonna go down a little ways and they'll come back up again and so i'll just go to the rock pile and wait for them and so glenn turns around and he goes up back over the drop-off ledge he makes his way to the rock pile and he just sits there facing the eastern tunnel waiting for his brother his sister and the other divers to come back out again but they don't and finally his air gauge gets so low that he literally has to go to the surface and he's thinking to himself if my air is this low what are they doing down there 24 year old larry reynolds was one of the divers that went with glenn's sister and brother and the other two divers into this forbidden third stage section of the cave although he doesn't say this it sounded like he and the others just wanted to go a little ways into this off-limits section check it out and then turn around and go back to the surface and so larry would say as soon as they went over the ledge and they're in this third stage it went completely pitch black and the tunnel immediately constricted dramatically and so as they're going down this very tight and pitch black tunnel they reach a section that's so tight they're down on their stomachs literally pulling themselves through and so after a few minutes of the group forcing themselves into this unbelievably dangerous place it's like they all collectively realized this is a terrible idea we need to turn back and so as they all began turning around they realized their return trip just back up to the drop-off ledge which was only maybe 25 feet was completely silted out and so larry is in the back of this return trip line and right in front of him is christine and so as soon as they all make their way into the silt the only thing larry can see with his flashlight is christine's fins and so he's staying right up on her and keeping his light on that fin to make sure he's going in the right direction and so after only a few moments christine's fins just suddenly disappear and so larry's thinking i don't know where she went but i don't have enough time i have almost no air and so he just keeps on swimming believing he's going the right way and sure enough he clears out of the silt and he goes up and back over the drop-off ledge and he shines his light back up the eastern tunnel back up towards the rock pile expecting to see christine and the other divers he was just with but he's looking and there's no one there there's no silt it's totally clear and there's not one diver in front of him so he looks at his gauge again and he's got a little bit of air enough to maybe go down and make sure nobody is still down there because he's thinking i don't think it's possible they could have swam all the way through this tunnel in this space of time so he turns around he goes back over the drop off ledge back into the silt and as he's moving very slowly and cautiously up ahead he sees flashlights moving around on the ceiling of the tunnel and so he moves down towards this flashing light and he realizes the light is coming from inside of a false dome right above him and so he looks up and he saw there was christine and another man named roberts who was 28 frantically swimming around shining their lights looking for the way out not realizing they're in this dead end and so larry was about to shine his light to get their attention when larry's flashlight went out and so now larry is in complete darkness he is completely silted out he doesn't even know how much air he has left because he can't shine the light on it and so he's starting to panic he starts banging on his flashlight and finally the light comes back on and when it does he shines it straight up again to try to shine it towards christine and roberts but he had drifted farther down the tunnel and so by the time he shined his light he wasn't underneath the fall stone but when he shined his light in the other direction he saw he was at the very far end of where the group had gone and so farther down into stage three was clear there was no silt and so he shined his light down into the stage three tunnel and way down the tunnel barely visible he sees there is one diver with his flashlight out swimming the wrong direction down into oblivion his name was john he was 20 years old and he almost certainly had nitrogen narcosis larry knew he could not save him and so larry turned around and went back into the silt back up in the direction of the rock pile touching the ceiling looking for that entrance into the false dome to try to help christine and roberts but he's not finding it and he's looking at his air gauge and it's getting critically low and he knows if he doesn't go soon he's gonna die and so at some point after not finding the entrance to this false dome he decides he just has to go out and save himself and so he manages to get out of the silt he goes up and over the drop off ledge he gets to the rock pile he grabs the safety line and he thins himself up to the surface and when he gets to the surface he looks around and there's only three other divers up there one of which is glenn and glenn he looks visibly panicked and he yells to larry hey have you seen my brother and my sister have you seen the others are they coming up after you and larry looks at him and just shakes his head he didn't know what to say he knew they were gone but for glenn this was his baby brother his baby sister he had to go back down and so with the little bit of air he had left he put his mouthpiece in he turned around and he dove straight down as fast as he could staring towards the opening of the eastern tunnel praying that his family members that his friends are going to come out of there but as he's swimming down and he's running out of air no one was coming out of that tunnel and so finally when his air was basically empty he had to turn around and on that return trip back to the surface he realized his siblings and his two friends were gone it would take 11 months and 11 days to finally locate and recover all four of the bodies inside of the cave john the 20 year old who larry saw swimming in the wrong direction was found fairly far down the eastern tunnel laying on a rocky outcropping glenn's 22 year old brother stephen was found just 50 feet from the entrance of the shaft but it's believed he died at a much lower depth and then floated up to that position glenn's 19 year old sister christine and the 28 year old man roberts that she was with inside of the false dome were found embracing each other just under the false dome inside of the tunnel investigators believe when they were in there they couldn't find the exit and then realized that they had so little air that even if they found the exit they would not get out in time and so knowing they were just minutes away from death they abandoned looking for the exit and instead just embraced each other while they died and then afterwards they floated down and out of the fall stone after this tragedy the shaft was permanently closed to all divers but years later they would reopen it so that's gonna do it guys if you found the secret in today's episode let us know in the comments section what it is and where you found it so give us the time stamp and if you're the first to do that we'll pin you at the top of the comment section if you got something out of today's episode and you haven't done this already please offer to take the like button out to a very nice restaurant outside of town and when they get out of the car tell them that you only offered to take them there and proceed to drive away also please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly three or four video uploads if you want to get in touch with me you can direct message me on instagram or on twitter my username for both platforms is the same it's john ballen416 i also have a ton of content over on tick tock where my username is mr ballen i also have a second youtube channel called mr ball and shorts where i post random short videos and lost episodes if you have a story suggestion please submit it to our subreddit just called mr ballin it's linked in the description below so whether i see you on instagram twitter tick tock reddit youtube or some combination just know that i really appreciate your support and until next time that's gonna do it see ya

Channel: MrBallen

Views: 1,452,141

Rating: 4.9609156 out of 5

Keywords: strange, dark, mysterious, true, story, scary, scary story, horror story, disturbing, narration, narrator, storyteller, storytime, storytelling, unsolved mystery, solved mystery, true crime, oof, nope, claustrophobia, claustrophobic, tight space, squeeze, tight squeeze, diving, diver, scuba, scuba diving, scuba diver, australia, australian, mount gambier, cave diving, cave, underwater cave, trapped, stuck, horror, drown, scuba tanks, anxiety, hole, small hole, tragedy, tragic, accident, diving accident, horrible

Id: A3yaednyAjI

Length: 17min 34sec (1054 seconds)

Published: Sat May 29 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Crisis_Redditor]

There's a cavern in South Africa that's killed three.

These stories are mesmerizing and horrifying at once.

[u/DayswordWeredindle]

Some of these stories are truly horrifying... getting stuck in an autoclave or inside the engine of a ship... but these stories where people are, frankly, just being stupid and doing something they're not supposed to be doing just don't elicit much sympathy from me.

[u/darktoof666]

70+ strange, dark and mysterious videos ago I used to feel so much sympathy for the misguided poor souls who died such terrible deaths in caves from nitrogen narcosis, getting lost or upside-down swimming in Speedos with a children's snorkel but now I just 'meh' as soon as I hear the now infamous death-certain words 'cave diving' - it's the equivalent to petting touching averse Atkins-dieting-tigers blindfolded dressed in a suit made of bacon.