Rescuers wrote haunting four-word message during Maldives divers recovery mission in 'shark cave'
William Morgan
Featured Image Credit: Mohamed Afrah / AFP via Getty Images
The team of world-class diving experts who spent hours recovering the bodies of four Italians who died on an undersea expedition in the Maldives scrawled a short, haunting, message as they explored 'shark cave'.
All five members of the ill-fated expedition died last Thursday, May 14, after descending almost 200ft under Vaavu Atoll to explore a complicated cave system on a multi-hour dive. A sixth diver died trying to recover their bodies.
This led to an expert Finnish rescue team, which comprised Sami Paakkarinen, Jenni Westerlund, Patrik Grönqvist, descending under the Maldives' crystal-clear water with their own dedicated and specialized roles to ensure their safe return.
One was in charge of recovery, another was responsible for the safety of the team and the bodies, with the third functioning as a back-up and observer. When they found the bodies, one of the team scribbled a four-word message down.
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After their successful three-hour dive, they said: “First of all, we would like to express our deepest condolences to the families of the divers who lost their lives.
"The reason we responded to the request for help was our desire to assist in this heartbreaking situation. After three days of operations, all of the missing divers have now been recovered and are on their way home.
"A huge thank you to DAN Europe, the Italian Embassy, the Maldivian Defence Forces, the police, and all the other volunteers: without you, this would not have been possible.
"We would also like to give a big thank you to everyone for the many encouraging messages we have received”.
But they also shared what they had scribbled on a four-word message on a piece of paper while 200ft beneath the ocean's surface. 'WE FOUND ALL FOUR,' they scribbled, before tearing off the sheet and dropping it.
Being underwater, their sheet floated up to the surface and let the rest of the team know that they had succeeded on their mission. Which will have been a relief for the families of Monica Montefalcone, her daughter Giorgia Sommacal, Federico Gualtieri, and Muriel Oddenino.
Their diving instructor Gianluca Benedetti had been recovered shortly after their surface boat realized they had not resurfaced, with rescuers finding him near the entrance to the complicated cave network where the rest of the expedition were found.
But the three expert Finnish divers had to go much further inside the cave system to find the rest of the team, recovering their bodies a few hundred feet inside the cave, past a sand bank and in an antechamber.
The CEO of the company behind their expedition, Dan Europe, argued that this sand bank may have confused the team when they turned around, potentially appearing like a solid wall if they had become disoriented.
Instead, the four Italians were found in a side corridor adjacent to this sand bank, which was sadly a dead end.