Safe recovery at the "Deep Flooded Mine" AKA: King of Shadows
Posted by Dan Wright on 12/5/2014, 2:34 am
After Bernie Chowdhury located the 1988 Monte Carlo SS, at 200' and marked it with lift bag the following weekend, John Eells and I dropped down to investigate. Reports of a large police search in 1990 for the same car, because of a stolen safe from an organized crime was rumored to be in the trunk. The state police search turned up nothing, as they were not equipped to dive at such depths, and the car ended up in the last place they would have looked, nearly 300 feet from the western bank where it was driven in. Locals have named this place: King of Shadows, as nothing dropped in had ever been seen again. The car looked a bit dented from impact on the nose, passenger side windshield cracked and passenger side T-Top missing. Driver's door opened just like brand new, key in the ignition and it was in drive. No trunk key, John and I figured we'd have to wedge open the trunk enough to use a hacksaw on the latch. It took two dives to work the trunk apart enough with a 5' crowbar to be able to slide a hacksaw in the cut the latch away. After spending 20 minutes on the third dive cutting, the trunk was open and indeed the safe was there. The two earlier dives I spent 45 and 50 minutes at 200' working with the crowbar. The biggest fear was puncturing my drysuit and flooding with hours long deco in 42 degree water. After the trunk was open, two more dives to secure the safe with ratchet straps, and then lastly filling a 500 lb lift bag to send it to the surface. Once on the surface, it was pulled over to the dive platform via an inflatable, then hoisted onto the steel deck via a "come along" by John Eells. Great team effort and focus, with excellent topside support. Bernie, John, William Ahrens, Teddy Garlock, Jesse Kates, Nasreen Hague, Tim Thomas and others all pitched in to help solve a chapter in this mystery. There is a backstory that is beyond the scope of this website, that is still being investigated.
Ny Dave: Here is a link to the dive where I was preparing to place the ratchet straps around the safe, the preceding dive I had managed to hacksaw open the trunk. Unfortunately the damn battery died as I was unwrapping the straps to capture the safe, but the viz would soon turn to near zero anyway. As for other images, I have an album on FB of nearly 100 images of the team's efforts over the summer and fall at the mine. There are seven videos so far I have uploaded to YouTube, you can search for them easily using my name, and it should be simple with the link provided here. I am glad you are interested. The internet is sort of like television, if you don't like what is on, just switch the channel. I realize this sort of diving is not of everyone's interest, but I have had many folks asking for updates on progress. Cheers!
Dan Wright - I clicked on your link and it was only a picture. I like the videos you post. Do you have any video's of this dive that we could enjoy? Ive been reading back through old posts on this board and reading some of your cave and ocean exploration adventures also. Do you have a blog or any suppository where all of these video's are posted to be seen at one place?
Re: Safe recovery at the "Deep Flooded Mine" AKA: King of Shadows
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on 12/5/2014, 2:34 am
