Audrey Mestre (August 11, 1974 - October 12, 2002)
was a French world record-setting freediver.
On October 4, 2002, with a dive team under her husband's supervision, she made a practice dive off Bayahibe Beach in the Dominican Republic to the unheard of depth of 166 meters (545 ft). After more deep dive practices, eight days later she prepared to attempt a dive to 171 meters but at the bottom a problem developed with the lift balloon as she started her ascent. A dive that should have been no more than three minutes resulted in her remaining underwater for more than eight and a half minutes. By the time her husband was able to bring her unconscious body to the surface it was too late and she was pronounced dead at a hospital on shore.
Her death shocked the diving world; many experts in the field were critical of her husband, alleging he pushed her too far, too fast and for a lack of proper safety procedures during the dive that took her life.
In 2006 Venezuelan-born US-citizen Carlos Serra, a former IAFD-partner of Ferreras' and co-organizer of Mestre's fatal record attempt, published a book The Last Attempt which received wide acclaim in and out of freediving circuits. In this book, Serra places the guilt for Mestre's death directly on Ferreras, practically accusing him of a crime. According to Serra's depiction, in October 2002 the Ferreras and Mestre marriage was on the brink of divorce after much abuse by Ferreras, possibly due to Ferreras being jealous about the attention Mestre was gaining at his expense. Serra argues that to punish his wife for wanting to leave him, Ferreras deliberately avoided filling the sled's air tank, a vital piece of equipment to ensure Mestre's return to the surface. Several circumstances leave Serra to conclude that Ferreras may not have intended to murder his wife, but that it was his direct irresponsible actions that led to her death.
Audrey Mestre was cremated, her ashes scattered at sea. In 2002, she was inducted posthumously into the Women Divers Hall of Fame and in August 2004 a book that tells her story was written by her husband and published under the title The Dive: A Story of Love and Obsession .
The Dive is a proposed movie based on the story of Ferreras and Mestre. It will be directed by James Cameron and has a tentative 2012 release.
From Wikipedia
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