This is Jacob's Well.
On the surface, it's just a dark blue opening in a riverbed.
People flock to the area to swim and jump in the crystal clear and seemingly harmless water,
but in reality, it is the opening to a massive underwater cavern.
It's considered to not only be one of the most dangerous in Texas,
but one of the most dangerous on Earth.
In this video, we're gonna go over some of the horrifying incidents that have taken place here.
As always, viewer discretion is advised.
[music]
So the story goes: in the mid 1850s, a newly arrived settler to the area
was walking along a creek in Texas, roughly midway between San Antonio and Austin.
The man was looking for a spot to construct a water-powered mill,
so he was just sort of walking along the bank
and scanning the river and bottom and surveying the area.
As he walked along, he started to notice an area
that was significantly rougher than the rest of the creek.
Then as he made his way over, he realized it was basically like a
bubbling cauldron right in the middle of the water.
Rather than the flow of water over rocks creating normal rapids,
this seemed to be coming straight up out of the river
and bubbling as much as six feet high (1.83 m) into the air.
The man didn't know it at the time,
but he just discovered the outflow of something known as a karst spring,
and this one was later named Jacob's Well.
In this area of Texas, there is a large underground aquifer known as the Trinity Aquifer,
which supplied Jacob's Well with as much as 640 liters (169 gal) of water per second.
This flow was also moving fast enough at the time of its discovery
that it created an upside-down waterfall on the surface
that shot several feet into the air, which was the bubbling that the man discovered.
Following its discovery, a mill was built in the area that took advantage of this natural flow of water,
and this mill operated for several decades, as did the waterfall,
until around the mid 20th century when other construction in the area
started to cause damage to the Trinity Aquifer.
Over time, this reduced the outflow to Jacob's Well
from six foot jets to just a small ripple, barely noticeable on the river's surface.
Obviously, it's a shame that this natural feature was damaged,
but this also had the unintended effect of revealing the cavern
in the ground from which the water flowed.
In the crystal clear river, if you come to the edge where Jacob's Well is located,
the bank drops into the water and down to a flat yellow rock
that forms the bottom of most of the river.
For the most part, this is what the bottom of the river looks like.
It's bright and clearly pretty shallow. But where the jets originate though,
the riverbed abruptly drops vertically into a deep blue abyss
compared to the surrounding water.
This is not unlike a blue hole that you see in the ocean, just on a smaller scale,
and this hole in the riverbed, that is Jacob's Well,
is about 12 feet or four meters in diameter.
If you stand at the edge of the well, you might be standing in just ankle-deep water,
depending on the depth of the river at the time,
but the bottom of the vertical opening is almost not visible down below.
Like a blue hole as well, the limestone rock was slowly eroded
by the outflow of water and created a large underground cave.
The section that's visible in the riverbed is only a small fraction of its true size.
And at first, this cave wasn't really known about
because the flow of water actually made it too difficult to swim down and explore Jacob's Well.
As the current slowed, divers and scuba divers were finally able to get into the water
and start to explore the freshwater blue hole.
For the most part, people from the area come to swim in the river and cliff jump from the edge.
But as there always are, some people just can't help themselves
and need to see what's down below.
Over the years, as a result of some of these dives ending tragically,
Jacob's Well has developed a reputation for not only one of the deadliest dive sites
in Texas, but also in the entire world.
In early September of 1979, a group of friends planned
to camp out one evening and complete a night dive off the well.
Since they intended to explore the cave itself, it didn't really matter if it was light or dark out,
and at least at nighttime, they'd be free of any swimmers to disturb them.
So at around midnight, on the 9th, the group entered the water
and made their way down to the bottom of the first chamber at around 25 feet (7.62 m).
In their group were two friends, Kent and Mark,
who were both experienced and had dived Jacob's Well before.
For some time, Kent had been thinking about the true depth of the cave.
You see, Jacob's Well is actually composed of a series of descending rooms
or chambers that get progressively smaller the deeper you go.
From the first chamber at 25 feet deep, there is a small corridor to the west
which connects to a second larger chamber.
This descends vertically again to a depth of 55 feet (16.8 m),
and then at the bottom is a third horizontal chamber.
This room descends diagonally once again to around 75 feet (23 m),
and this is where it gets challenging.
Separating the third and fourth chambers is just a narrow opening
that you actually have to remove your tanks to get through.
At the time, Kent had heard conflicting accounts of what was beyond this small opening.
Some people said it was just a dead-end, and others said it opened up to another large chamber.
He also knew that at least four divers hadn't returned after trying to explore this section,
but Kent was just one of those guys,
and the promise of a potentially large chamber was too enticing.
So Kent and Mark made their way down into the third chamber,
and not far behind them was another man named Joe.
Eventually, Joe could see that off in front of him,
Kent and Mark were inspecting the small opening to the fourth chamber,
and without hesitation, and to Joe's horror,
they started pulling their tanks off and backing into the opening.
Even crazier, they didn't have backup lights or a safety line,
and it wasn't even clear what their plan was because no one had discussed doing this.
It's not even clear if this had been Kent's plan all along
or if he'd made the decision impulsively after seeing the squeeze.
Either way, by the time Joe made his way over,
all he saw was Mark's light disappearing into the darkness.
Joe quickly flashed his light back and forth to signal them,
but Mark didn't even look up before he was out of view.
Sitting there, stunned, Joe knew that both of them were wearing steel tanks
that had less air capacity than the aluminum one he was wearing.
They were also traveling deeper in, meaning that the rate that they'd be consuming air would be quicker.
And so soon enough, he checked his gauges and realized that if he was low on air,
their situation would be much, much worse.
In a last effort, he banged on his tanks with the back of his dive knife to try to signal them.
And then, before he was too low on air, he grabbed his light
and dropped it into the narrow opening to the fourth chamber,
hoping that it would help them find their way back.
With that, he turned around and made his way to the surface,
not knowing whether they were alive or dead.
This was unfortunately made clear to him as he sat on the water's edge, pulling off his gear,
when the water turned a deep, murky brown.
This meant that either they were panicked and kicking up massive amounts of silt,
or there had been a cave in or a gravel slide.
Either way, Joe was pretty sure that Kent and Mark wouldn't be coming back.
Several hours later, rescuers were on the scene and preparing to perform a body recovery.
Even by the time they'd arrived, the remaining group members
had been in and out of the water, searching desperately for the two men.
And by then, they were all exhausted and in shock,
and they still hadn't seen any sign of Kent or Mark.
As the recovery team stood at the water's edge,
they contemplated going in right away or waiting until morning.
From what they were told by Joe and the others, it didn't seem like it would be that difficult to rescue,
and it would be dark in the cave, whether it was morning or night.
But the man in charge of the rescue, Don Dibble, was still unsure of the condition,
so he sent down two divers to assess and see if they could even locate the bodies.
What they found was that not only could they not find them,
but that the opening to the fourth chamber was almost completely closed off by gravel.
They eventually returned to the surface and told Don about how bad it was,
and that's when he made the decision to wait until the following day
to have a bigger crew and better equipment.
At around 10:00 AM, they were back on the scene with a full team,
and pretty quickly, divers were in the water with trowels,
attempting to clear some of the gravel and widen the opening.
Unfortunately, this seemed to do almost the exact opposite.
With every push, more gravel seemed to slide in and take the place of any pushed away.
After several hours of little progress,
Don decided to go down for himself and see if he had any better ideas.
On his way down, he dropped a spare tank at the bottom of the first chamber.
Then at 75 feet (22.9 m), at the bottom of the third, while also running a safety line the entire way.
Then as he swam horizontally across the third chamber,
he and the other diver he was with, scanned the ceiling in case the bodies had floated upward.
Finally, they made it to the entrance of the fourth chamber,
which was in fact covered by a large pile of gravel.
He then checked his pressure gauge and saw that he had about 10 minutes of air left,
so he decided to see if he could take a look into the fourth chamber and see anything.
He then grabbed his safety line and held onto it
as he sort of wedged his head and shoulders into the crevice.
Unfortunately, he couldn't really see much other than
the occasional piece of gravel kicked up by the water current.
And right as he realized what he was seeing, he had a split second of panic
as he realized the current and his body could dislodge this large mass of gravel.
And basically right as the thought went through his head, his torso and arms were pinned in place.
In just a second, the entire area was completely silted out,
and his arms were so stuck that he couldn't grab his safety line.
He also couldn't signal to the diver who'd come in with him,
nor could the other diver see in all of the silt.
Don, being the expert that he was, was able to stay calm,
but he could feel his breathing rate increase
as he exerted more and more energy, trying to free his body from the gravel.
Then, horrifyingly, he took a breath and no air came through his regulator.
He pulled again and nothing, and then water started to enter his mouth.
The sudden realization of what was happening caused him to spasm involuntarily,
and this was so violent that it freed his arms, and that a split second later,
he was met with a regulator being shoved into his mouth by the other diver.
He immediately inhaled almost as violently,
and in doing so, swallowed about half the large breath he took.
This was another huge mistake.
That breath was taken under the massive pressure almost a hundred feet into the water.
So as the two made their way to the surface, the air on his stomach expanded
and expanded until his stomach was the size of a basketball.
He tried to burp to get the air out, but nothing came out.
And then by the time they finally surfaced, he screamed out in pain.
Don was rushed to the hospital and then immediately into surgery,
but in just the few-minute trip to the surface,
the air had expanded so much, it ruptured his stomach.
It would take several weeks in the hospital before he finally recovered,
but thankfully, he would fully recover.
In the meantime, while Don was in the hospital,
another local diver took over the rescue who'd been involved in several other rescues
and had sort of acted as the landlord of Jacob's Well, for a period of time.
The first thing he did was head down to the last place Don had been
to get a better look at the situation.
He would end up finding Don's light in the area that Don had gotten stuck,
and realized that the only way to get to the fourth chamber
would be to remove all of the gravel.
Two days later, a bunch of equipment was brought in,
including a recompression chamber, a large vacuum, and a series of ropes.
Soon enough, a large hose was snaked down to the gravel pile,
and the removal process began.
The hose took care of the smaller debris while divers placed larger rocks into bags
and pulled them up by rope to the surface.
As with before, this was not an easy task.
Much of the gravels were placed basically as it was pulled out,
and what was initially accepted to be a one-day job quickly turned into a full-week operation.
And by the end of the week, tensions had started to rise between city officials
and the dive company over the cost of the operation.
In just that week's time, it got so bad that rescue operations were eventually halted.
A diver with a camera was then sent down to see the progress that had been made
and if the fourth chamber was accessible.
When the tape was played back initially, it seemed like after all the effort, they still had nothing.
But then, they noticed a concentration of fish in a specific spot during one of the frames.
After watching it back several times, they were able to make out a tank valve and a regulator,
which they thought belonged to either Kent or Mark.
But despite locating them, the issues between the dive company and the city were irreconcilable.
And 12 days after their fateful dive, the search was called off.
Several months later, Don was recovered and anxious to get back into Jacob's Well,
but not for recreation.
He wanted to make sure that no one else could end up like Kent or Mark.
First, he had bags of concrete lowered into the cave,
and then over the course of several hours, built a wall over the entrance of the fourth chamber.
The wall had a metal grave running through it, which would allow water to continue to flow
but it would ultimately seal the bodies inside.
Incredibly, this wasn't a deterrent at all.
Just another few months after that, the gate was gone
and a note was placed in its place that read: 'You can't keep us out."
And so, as you might imagine, with the gate removed, divers continued to explore Jacob's Well
and would continue to push the limits of the deeper sections.
Four years after the deaths of Kent and Mark, and three years after the gate was installed,
two members of an advanced diving class held at Texas State University,
were at the water's edge, pulling on their wetsuits.
These two guys, Richard and Clark, were well on their way to becoming instructor-certified
and wanted to complete a dive that was more challenging than open-water conditions.
Like others before them, they made their way through the first two chambers and then across the third,
and up to the squeeze where the gate had previously been installed.
Now, it's not clear if divers had removed the gravel
or if the water flowing through the cave had managed to clear it,
but either way, by the time Richard and Clark were diving that day,
the crevice was widened enough for them to enter.
So the two of them pulled off their air tanks and began shimming backward through the narrow crevice.
Richard went through first, and then Clark was going through afterwards,
and his tanks got snagged on some rocks.
He twisted and pulled, but eventually, he had to let them go to join Richard on the other side.
When Clark came through without his tank, Richard immediately handed him his regulator,
and then the two of them started buddy breathing.
Unfortunately, this meant that this was basically the official end of their dive.
They couldn't really do much exploring if they were buddy breathing,
and it was just much safer to come back at a different time when they both had tanks.
So they both squeezed their way back through the opening
and started making their way horizontally across the third chamber,
passing the regulator back and forth as they swam.
Then they entered the second chamber, and here's where they made a huge mistake.
Another thing about Jacob's Well that makes it so dangerous is that
like other limestone caves, there are tunnels and passages
that snake off from the main chambers.
That's why it's crucial to use a safety line to ensure you know the way back.
In particular, in the second chamber, as you ascend toward the exit,
there are two passages that look very similar.
One of these takes you directly to the first chamber and then out,
and the other is something known as a "false chimney".
It ascends almost exactly like the second chamber, but instead of exiting, you hit a roof instead.
So as Richard and Clark quickly swam to the surface, sharing the air tank,
they accidentally swam into that false chimney.
Soon enough, they were butting up against the ceiling of the passage,
wondering where the exit was.
And as they felt around for an exit, not realizing what they had done,
and like Don Dibble a few years prior, all of a sudden,
pulling air through the regulator felt like pulling air through a straw.
Horrifyingly, their only air tank had just run out, still several dozen feet from the surface.
Without thinking, Clark just started swimming hard back in the direction they came from.
Around the bend into the second chamber, into the first chamber,
and then his head shut up through the surface as he gasped for air.
Then he spun around and looked back and forth and realized that Richard wasn't with him.
He sat on the surface, waiting desperately and looking into the water,
but within a few minutes, he knew it was too late.
Richard's body was later recovered from inside the false chimney by Don Dibble.
Don would even say that this recovery was particularly emotional for him
because the two of them were students of the advanced diving class he taught.
In class, he always emphasized that cave diving and open-water diving are different,
and this was a perfect example of why that was the case.
But, again, despite the numerous tragedies that had taken place at the well,
divers continued to dive deeper and push the limits of what was possible,
and a select few individuals would actually make it beyond the legendary fourth chamber.
On the evening of February 26th, 1984, two scuba instructors, John and Danny,
and an experienced caver named Wayne, entered the cool water at Cypress Creek.
These were experienced and trained individuals,
and they had brought all the equipment to make a safe and hopefully, groundbreaking attempt.
They got through the first chamber and then ran a line from there,
all the way to the start of the third chamber.
They started a new line after that,
which went horizontally across the third and halfway into the fourth.
Once they were in there, Wayne and John removed their tanks and checked the air pressure,
and then Wayne started in to the narrow opening of what has come to be known
as the fifth chamber.
This fifth chamber is even smaller than the fourth and is more like a tunnel than a chamber.
It's just five feet wide and two feet high (1.5 x 0.61 m),
and requires that you push your tanks out in front of you as you move through it.
As he did this, he unspooled a new line as he went,
and then John followed in behind him, taking pictures along the way.
At the same time, Danny entered the fourth chamber behind them
to maintain the lines as they had discussed prior to entering the cave.
He also planned to swim around and explore the fourth chamber
and look for a set of tanks left by two divers who had drowned back in 1979.
Eventually, John and Wayne made it through the fifth
and then into the sixth chamber and out of view from Danny.
As far as I can tell, or at least what's available online,
this sixth chamber has never been drawn on a map,
so it's entirely unclear what it looks like or how big it is.
In any case, once they were out of view, Danny got to work, scanning the fourth chamber,
and found that it was more like a small room about eight feet high and 10 feet wide (2.4 x 3.05 m).
Incredibly, he would manage to find the tanks, which he quickly tied to a line,
and then he also moved toward the fifth chamber to follow the other two.
He pulled his tanks off and squeezed into the narrow passage,
but now with the tanks attached to the line,
he became acutely aware of just how small the passage was.
It was so narrow that he had to stay flat on his stomach, and despite his best efforts,
all the movement of him and the tanks was causing visibility to worsen.
Then as he continued on, the lines started to tangle,
and Danny start to get a little bit more anxious about the situation he was in.
He took a deep breath, grabbed the line, untangled it,
and then pushed himself back into the fourth chamber to wait for the two men instead.
In the sixth chamber, Wayne was extending a 100-foot (30.5 m) survey tape
to try to measure the dimensions of what was turning out to be a large room.
John was still waiting around, taking pictures,
but soon, visibility started to get bad in that chamber as well.
Despite not being able to see though,
John could tell that the sixth chamber was much, much larger.
He could easily stand and he couldn't see how far it extended into the distance.
The bottom of it was also muddy instead of rocky like the rest of the cave,
making the risk of silting out that much greater.
Finally, Wayne came back into view, holding the survey tape
and signaled to him that it was time to go back.
So John turned and followed the safety line back into the fifth chamber,
and about midway through, came up to a set of tanks that were stuck in the opening.
On his way out, Danny had decided to just leave the tanks
because they kept getting tangled in the line and caught on the rocks.
Then, between John pushing and Danny pulling from the other side,
they did manage to dislodge the tanks and then continue on.
First, through the crevice between the third and fourth,
and then at around the start of the third chamber,
John met up with Danny where visibility was a little bit better.
Suddenly, they realized that Wayne was nowhere to be found.
At first, John assumed that maybe he was working with a survey tape
or getting his tanks back on after moving through the fifth chamber.
He hadn't signaled anything to the contrary, and up until a few seconds ago,
he seemed to be right behind them.
So the two of them continued on, thinking that Wayne would just join them shortly afterward,
and in the meantime, they could start their decompression stops.
Then, about halfway through decompressing, there were still no sign of Wayne,
and the two of them started to get really worried.
At that point, they had basically just enough air to decompress in an exit,
so there was no way for them to go back and look for Wayne.
As they waited, they just stared off into the dark tunnels,
hoping to see Wayne's light off in the distance, but tragically, it never came.
The two men eventually surfaced with no idea what happened.
Wayne's body was discovered the following day at the entrance to the fifth chamber.
His mask was in place, his tank was by his side,
and he was lying directly on top of the safety line.
To this day, no one knows exactly what happened in his final moments.
Hello everyone. Welcome to Scary Interesting.
Thank you so much for watching, and hopefully, I will see you in the next one.