Brett Hemphill, president of Karst Underwater Research (KUR) and holder of the record for deepest underwater cave dive in the United States, has died after failing to surface from a dive at Phantom Springs in West Texas.
Hemphill and his buddy, KUR director Andy Pitkin were diving on the morning of 4 October while exploring more than a mile into the Phantom Springs cave system. According to a statement on the KUR Facebook page, the dive began at a depth of 450ft (137m) at about 7300ft (1.3 miles; 2.2km) of penetration.
Hemphill was last seen tying off the guideline at a depth of around 570ft (174m) before the team became separated.
Related articles
A rescue mission consisting of specialist cave divers, some of whom travelled thousands of miles to assist, took several days to locate and recover Hemphill’s body, which was finally returned to the surface on 9 October.
Hemphill, 56, had devoted most of his life to cave diving and exploration, after having become fascinated by caves on a youth excursion at the age of 14, during which he found a previously undiscovered section of the cave.
Since the late 1990s, Hemphill has assisted with the exploration, mapping and documentation of the deepest cave systems in the US. He and his KUR team broke the deep underwater cave record at Weeki Wachee Springs in Florida in 2008, and broke it again at Phantom Springs in 2013, with a depth of 465ft (142m), nearly 1.5 miles (2.4km) into the cave system.
As president of Karst Underwater Research, he and his team dedicated themselves to the protection of karst aquifers, a topographical feature which typically results in the formation of caves and sinkholes, in which approximately 40 per cent of US drinking water is contained.
According to his KUR profile, he also explored and researched cave systems in Missouri, the Bahamas, Cay Sal Banks, the Dominican Republic and Yucatán Peninsula. He was also instrumental in the design of the Armadillo sidemount system, specifically designed to allow for easy removal and replacement to negotiate narrow passageways
KUR has said it will be releasing a statement about the incident once they have processed and analysed all the available information, but has asked for time to come to terms with Hemphill’s loss before doing so.
- To the rescue! Author and musician Ross Merrin on training as a BDMLR MarineMammal Medic - 31 January 2025
- Sea Story liveaboard survivor tells her story - 28 January 2025
- Review: The Diver and the Cook by Lasse Spang Olsen - 27 January 2025
