We know the details of Sebastian Marczewski's dive - Update: official statement from the team

Yesterday, the diving community suffered another loss. Sebastian Marczewski died during an attempt to break the depth record in open circuit diving. As the hours pass, the first information and details concerning the last dive of the “Iron Diver” are reaching us. We know that he reached the record depth and calmly returned to the surface. Unfortunately, his luck ran out on the way…

It is said that it is the very end of the journey home that is the most dangerous and if something is to happen, it is then… Sebastian Marczewski almost reached his goal. He dived to a record 333 metres, unhooked the marker placed at the designated depth and began his ascent.

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Everything went according to plan. On the way back, he had already passed the 200 metre mark, a depth he was familiar with. Sebastian continued his ascent calmly… Unfortunately, in this type of diving, to succeed, you have to go from A to Z and back. Here, the outcome is always zero-sum, and the situation can change in the blink of an eye.

From the information we have received, we know that shortly after reaching a depth of 200 metres, one of Sebastian’s cylinders became entangled in a piece of rope. Attempts to free himself were unsuccessful.

Sebastian Marczewski had been preparing for his attempt to break Ahmed Gabr’s record for several years. He systematically carried out his plan and reached the assumed depth. Everything was going according to plan. Unfortunately, even the best plan may not be enough…

Update 07/07/2019, 18.15:

[blockquote style=”2″]Statement from Team Sebastian Marczewski

As planned for the world record attempt in the 333m dive, preparations began at around 5:00am on 6 July 2019. After the diving platform arrived at the indicated position, the immersion of the late Sebastian Marczewski began at 6:22 a.m. This was the last time we saw the late Sebastian alive.

After 1h40min the checking diver was supposed to meet the late Sebastian at a depth of about 100m. Unfortunately, Sebastian was not at this depth, so the diver dived to a depth of 159m and much lower, in the distance from the release line, he saw a motionless light. As the gas he had did not allow him to dive deeper, he began the ascent. After about 3 hours, the second diver set off to meet the late Sebastian, but this time the meeting did not take place. After receiving information from the second diver that the late Sebastian was not at the set depths, we notified the Italian rescue services of this fact.

The rescue boat, using sonar, located the late Sebastian at a depth of approximately 170 metres. According to the decision of the rescuers, we were given permission to leave the dive site. At around 7pm, the body of the late Sebastian was recovered. Today, i.e. 7 July 2019, we were informed by the rescue service that the assumed depth of 333 metres was reached by the late Sebastian, but a tragic entanglement in the rope occurred during ascent.

For several hours we have learned that the good name of the late Sebastian is being unfoundedly attacked by people who do not have adequate diving knowledge and basic good manners, and who do not respect his past achievements, which in recent years contributed a lot to Polish diving. We ask them to refrain from baseless divagations about the incident, because they were too far from the situation.

Krzysztof Dołowy, Robert Kupszta, Rafał Kijek, Jowita Kozana
07 July 2019. Limone sul Garda[/blockquote].

Source: for the editors’ information
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