I live over in Spring Hill a few miles from there. The Darwin Awards should set up a field office at the cave entrance. The father might have figured it was safe to go down their because the underground water levels are low, (one reason, they say that their’s been sinkhole activity in the region.) Well this is a tragic example of why a little knowledge is dangerous
I got my open water certification at “Vortex Springs” somewhere in the panhandle when I was 14. My brother was with me and he was 13. The cave entrance is probably 100 feet off the end of the dock and 100 feet down. Water is so clear you can see the cave entrance standing on the dock when there aren’t many divers.
I was one of the last to dive that day and the lead instructor took me down. Went into the entrance of the cave. Could hardly see for the silt. He gives me the sign to buddy breath. So we pass the regulator back and forth as he leads me out of the cave. I thought we were training. Get out of the cave and he hits my BCP and up we go. We hit the surface and I tell him “WHF? We weren’t down 5 minutes?”
He says “I ran out of air”. Never told my Dad. He’d have probably killed the guy.
Things can go bad pretty quickly. Prayers for the dead divers.