Initial autopsy results suggest a French woman drowned while trying to break a world record in free diving, but it remained unclear what went wrong during the dive to 171 metres, an official said on Sunday.
Attached to a pulley and 90-kilogram weighted sled, Audrey Mestre plunged below the surface without oxygen on Saturday off La Romana, about 130 kilometres east of Santo Domingo.
Scuba divers brought her up 9 minutes and 44 seconds later and medics unsuccessfully tried to revive her.
”We don’t know exactly what happened,” said Carlos Serra, president of the Miami-based International Association of Free Divers. An initial autopsy conducted in the capital of Santo Domingo found drowning to be the cause of death, but a final report could take weeks to be released, he said.
”We believe something hit the sled,” Serra said earlier. ”When she came out of the water she was foaming from the mouth and bleeding.”
Mestre (28) reached her target depth of 171 metres at a beach near La Romana, Serra said. But in order for it to be considered a record, she needed to return to the surface safely, he said.
She was born in St. Denis, France, 10 kilometres north of Paris, and lived in Miami with her Cuban husband, Francisco ”Pipin” Ferreras, also a free diver. Serra said she was trying to break the ”no limits” dive world record recognised by his association: 162 meters achieved by Ferreras, off Cozumel, Mexico in January 2000.
In another deep dive, competitor Tanya Streeter reached a depth of 160 metres in Turks and Caicos in August. Officials with the International Association for the Development of Apnea, based in Switzerland, said Streeter’s dive broke men’s and women’s records for dives it had administered. But Serra said his association recognises Ferreras’ dive as the men’s world record.
He said Mestre had trained hard for Saturday’s dive, in which she was only supposed to be down for about three minutes. On October 4, Mestre plunged to 163,36 metres at the same spot. On Wednesday, she also went to 171 metres in an unofficial practice dive off La Romana, said Jeff Blumenfeld, a representative for Mares, an Italian diving equipment manufacturer that sponsored Mestre.
Blumenfeld said 13 scuba divers had been monitoring the dive for safety. Usually the diver descends and ascends on a single breath. But when something appeared to go wrong, Mestre was given oxygen on the ascent by one of the divers.
After the autopsy, her body was taken to a mortuary in Santo Domingo, the capital. Serra said Mestre’s parents were on their way from Mexico, where they live, and would decide where she would be buried. – Sapa-AP