John Hopkins

Before he collapses in his bed, Don is briefly able to phone his wife, Andre, who has been kept informed of his situation throughout the day.

In the midst of the grief around Dave's death, there is one central question.

What went wrong?

As it turns out, it isn't long before an answer is revealed.

In the days following the accident, some of the team begin retrieving the lines and gas cylinders that remain in the chamber.

As they pull the shot line up, the movement dislodges Dave's body from the bottom of the cave and he floats up towards the surface.

And, suspended below him by a thin cave line tangled around Dave's scuba gear, is D'Andrea.

After the bodies are retrieved, attention turns to the camera Dave was wearing.

The footage shows his dive went entirely to plan until he tried to place Dion into the body bag, at which point both he and the body became unexpectedly ensnared in the cave line.

During the struggle to free himself from the tangle, Dave's breathing grew heavier, increasing the amount of CO2 he was emitting into his rebreather.

As Don reckons with the loss of his friend, he is also struggling with his own physical recovery.

The effects of his decompression sickness are so bad that it's feared he may never walk normally again, let alone dive.

In the days that follow, he endures several sessions in the recompression chamber before Andre drives him for further treatment at a hospital in Pretoria.

Though Don shows incremental improvement after each session, progress is dispiritingly slow.

Yet, despite his debilitating symptoms, his determination to get back to diving propels him forward.

Only a matter of months after the tragic events at Bushman's Hole, he tries re-entering the water at Kamati Springs for the first time.

Despite everything, Don has returned many times to dive at Bushman's.

In the years since the accident, he's had plenty of time to reflect on his near-death experience there and on what enabled him to survive.

In the end, Dave did fulfill his promise to recover Dion's body, though he paid the highest price imaginable for it.

At the behest of Dave's widow, Don scattered his friend's ashes near his home at Kamati Springs.