Blue Hole Divers

The number of diver deaths in the Blue Hole is not  known, one source suggests 130 in the last fifteen years.[4] [3][5] The majority of those killed were experienced, including highly trained technical divers and diving instructors. There have also been snorkelling deaths at the surface unrelated to the depth of the hole.[7]

A notable death was that of Yuri Lipski, a 22-year-old Russian-Israeli diving instructor on 28 April 2000 at a depth of 115 metres after an uncontrolled descent. [3] [8] Yuri carried a video camera, which filmed his death. This has made it the best known death at the site and one of the best known diving deaths in the world.[4] The video shows Yuri in an involuntary and uncontrolled descent, eventually landing on the sea floor at 115 metres where he panics, removes his regulator and tries to fill his buoyancy compensator but is unable to rise. At that depth he would be subject to severe nitrogen narcosis, which may have impaired his judgement, induced hallucinations and caused panic and confusion. Lipski had a single tank of heliox (a mix of oxygen and helium), technical divers at the planned dive depth more commonly use multiple stage tanks filled with trimix (oxygen, nitrogen, and helium) to reduce narcosis and decompression times.

Lipski's body was recovered the following day by Tarek Omar, one of the world's foremost deep-water divers, at the request of Lipski's mother.[8][9] Omar had earlier twice warned Lipski against attempting the dive. On the bottom, Omar found Lipski's helmet camera, still intact.