Rick Stanton and John Volanthen, who are members of the South and Mid Wales Cave Rescue team, were asked by the Spéléo Secours Français to help search for Eric Establie.
The Frenchman, a highly experienced cave diver who ran an underwater engineering business, was lost in the Ardeche area’s Dragonnière Gaud cave, near Labastide de Virac.
It was hoped that he would be found alive in a dry section, after being trapped due to a rock fall in the cave passage.
According to a BBC report, Stanton and Volanthen were flown to the area by RAF helicopter as a French team dug through to a dry cave bypassing the rock fall, which was thought to have occurred about 780m into the system.
Stanton and Volanthen, called in for their immense cave diving experience and search and rescue skills, dived to find Establie’s remains a reported 900m in from the main cave entrance, eight days after he had entered.
They recovered his dive computer but the French cave rescue authorities decided not to recover his body, in order not to put divers in any further danger.
Stanton and Volanthen were recently part of a four-man team which set a remarkable world record penetration of 8.8km (5.5 miles) into Spain’s largely unexplored Pozo Azul cave system.
The expedition is recounted in the November issue of DIVER magazine.
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