Very Sad News -
[from] LE PARISIEN [website]
Missing for eight days, the caver Eric Establie found drowned
MS | 11.10.2010, 18h29 | Mise ? jour : 19h18 MS | 11/10/2010, 6:29 p.m. | Updated: 7:18 p.m.
The sub-prefecture Largenti?re announced Monday afternoon the death of missing caver in the gorges of Ardeche for eight days. Eric Establie was found drowned by the two British divers left on Monday to find her. This is the sub-prefect of Largenti?re, Rampon Jean, who announced the sad news, while divers were still in the cave.
Parties in the early morning for a dive in the extreme, two Britons were first made by a technical problem. The objective of this dive was the last chance to "make contact", bypassing the landslide which trapped Establie Eric had said Eric Zipper, adviser National Cave Rescue French. Both divers had so long prepared for the entrance of the hose, before embarking on a journey of over a kilometer in this gallery of underwater Dragonni?re Gaud.
Around 18:45, Eric Zipper, joined by parisien.fr said: "Our information is that the divers were able to write on the tablet (which allows communication with the team remained on the surface, ed.) They are still serving their decompression in the cauldron of entry. They were asked two questions: "Have you passed the restriction?" They answered "yes." "Have you found Establie Eric?" They replied: "Yes, listed under 70 (at 70m the scree )?... The adviser then understand the gravity of the situation. Deeply moved, he says: "Here we are stunned. ... It's hard ... Yet we must manage our divers are underwater. ?. .
Rescuers had not received any sign of life since Saturday caver. They then perceived sounds, some 200 meters from the place of his disappearance. It is also not come for the watertight filed Sunday by the two divers to the Swiss scree, because they contain the radio was not activated.
Diver by profession, he ran a construction company maritime and underwater at Cannes. Identified in the French Caving Relief (SSF) for four years as a volunteer diver, Eric Establie, 45, took part in March 2009 to the rise of the lifeless body of a diver experienced in the Lot.
In June 2001, the caver Patrick Mugnier was out of the abyss of Fontanilles (H?rault), five days after having disappeared. He had to cross 1.5 km dive into deep water 15 meters. Before him, in November 1999, seven cavers trapped in the abyss of Vitarelle (Lot) had been released after ten days. Their rescue was then considered "the most complex ever undertaken in France."