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Likely due to oxygen toxicity. The water column at +16 meters in open water exerts enough pressure to impact the way gasses exchange at a celular level in our bodies. Moving too quickly on the way up risks The Bends. Moving around too much on the way down, or going too deep without the right kit and skills, risks oxygen (toxicity) or nitrogen (narcosis) [corrected terms].
There’s several ‘blue hole’ dive spots where this happens more frequently. Divers lose most frame of reference for depth except their pressure gauge, which they ignore, then don’t even realise they aren’t thinking straight anymore and all they want to do is get just a little deeper to see that thing over there. Sadly once they’re at a certain depth any attempt to stop them or save them physically would likely get the rescuers killed by the same issues.
Cave divers have it even worse because the tide can add height to the water column, and on uncharted, tight caves they sometimes don’t have much choice of going in.
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Muc-ed-off
@edmundro
Few years ago we went climbing in a quarry somewhere in Somerset, there were caves underneath, not cute ones, rough damp ones. A guy slipped on the ladder on his way into the cave and broke his hip or pelvis. Either way, despite being right at the entrance it took nearly 4hrs to get him out. Poor fucker.
It’s the cave divers who are properly unhinged. Apparently there’s a psychological condition called ‘The Rapture’, where perfectly healthy divers will suddenly take off all their equipment and just swim off into the abyss. Happens worryingly frequently apparently.