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Peter Verhulsel was a risk-taker. When he and his friends went cave diving through Sterkfontein Caves in South Africa in 1984, he ignored every safety guideline. There was a line through the water that they were supposed to follow, but Peter’s curiosity kept driving him to explore passages off the planned path.
The third time he did so, his friends couldn’t find him. Peter swam through a maze of tunnels and soon realized that he was lost. He was trapped alone in a cave with no idea how to get out, and his oxygen was running low.
In a stroke of luck, he found a small island at the end of a tunnel. He climbed out of the water and onto the island. Now, at least, he wouldn’t drown, but he didn’t have enough oxygen left to find his way out. His only hope was to wait for rescue.
Peter waited for hours before he gave in to exhaustion and fell asleep. When he woke, no help had come. He sat in a pitch-black cavern with nothing to eat and nothing to do but wait.
It took rescuers six weeks to find Peter. By then, his starved body had withered to bones. He left one final message behind for his wife and his mother. In his last days, knowing he would die, he scrawled in the sand: “I love you, Shirl and Ma.”
