Cave diver Jill Heinerth was exploring an iceberg with her ex-husband Paul and their camera operator Wes Skiles. They were in the Ross Sea when they got sucked into the iceberg.
They ended up getting sucked into the iceberg and suddenly found themselves surrounded by ice. The cave divers had to fight for survival and try to find a way out. Speaking with People, Heinerth reflected on how they survived the extreme encounter.
She wrote, "Then the current picked up. We were hearing all of these cracks and thuds. I could feel them in my sternum. We turned to come out and started to swim up, but I realized that that doorway we'd gone into was not there anymore. That ice had either blown in or calved off of the iceberg and literally closed off our access. We needed to find a new way out, and that was pretty unsettling."
Iceberg Disaster
She explained that the current played a part in trapping them. What's worse, Heinerth realized that she had a hole in her glove. She wrote, "We realized it was a bad idea to let the current sweep us through. The current got so strong I was literally digging my hands into the seafloor to pull myself along. Plus, now I had this leak in my glove that was sort of paralyzing my hand because it was so cold. I couldn't feel it anymore. And this one hour dive turned into this three hour fight for our lives."
The diver was constantly focused on not panicking and trying to find a way out of the iceberg. However, she considered the real fact that she was going to die.
She wrote, "When we got back to this crevasse that would lead us back to the surface, I couldn't go up because every time I tried, the current would sweep us down and back into the iceberg. I realized there were these tiny little thumb-sized fish that were burrowing into the ice wall, and that I could use those holes that the fish was living in like handholds to pull myself up against the current and beat that flow and get back to the surface again."
They had to tuck their bodies and push against the current. She wrote, "We knew we have to stop and let our bodies get reacclimated. We had to find places where we could tuck in and hide against the current. But then you're still, and it's colder than ice cubes freezing in your refrigerator because salt water has to be colder to freeze."
Fortunately, she survived the iceberg.
