{"id":162577,"date":"2025-12-01T11:19:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T11:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/162577\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T11:19:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T11:19:09","slug":"divers-body-recovered-after-incident-in-tank-cave-in-south-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/162577\/","title":{"rendered":"Diver’s body recovered after incident in Tank Cave in South Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Sam Bradbrook and Daniel Keane, ABC<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\nThe man died while diving at Tank Cave.
\nPhoto: ABC South East SA: Sam Bradbrook\n<\/p>\n

The body of a man who died while cave diving in South Australia’s south-east has now been recovered, police say.<\/p>\n

The 65-year-old Victorian man died in Tank Cave, which is near Tantanoola and where emergency services were called on Sunday morning.<\/p>\n

His death prompted a significant recovery operation<\/a> involving the SA Police Water Operations Unit, specialists from the Cave Divers Association of Australia and Thai cave rescue hero Richard Harris.<\/p>\n

Police earlier said it was possible but not guaranteed that the diver’s body would be retrieved, but in a statement, confirmed the recovery had occurred.<\/p>\n

They said they were initially called to the scene following reports of a drowning, but Superintendent Trent Cox said the circumstances that led to the man’s death would be investigated.<\/p>\n

“The coronial process is all about determining the cause of death, what led to it, but in terms of whether there was a rock fall or anything like that, it’s too early to tell I’m afraid,” he said at a press conference on Monday.<\/p>\n

“The cave system\u2026 is extremely complex. It’s a labyrinth of tunnels – big, small, of varying degrees of accessibility.<\/p>\n

“It’s a complex scene [and we’re] very mindful of the trauma that family is experiencing.”<\/p>\n

Superintendent Cox said the man, whose body was found at a site known as P7, was part of a group of three, all of whom were “experienced cave divers”.<\/p>\n

He said the other two were also “understandably traumatised”.<\/p>\n

“They were well known to one another,” he said.<\/p>\n

The cave is about 25 kilometres from Mount Gambier and is one of 32 diving locations in the region.<\/p>\n

Police said two members of its Water Operations Unit had played a support role, with the actual retrieval undertaken by divers from the Cave Divers Association of Australia.<\/p>\n

Retired anaesthetist and cave diver Dr Harris<\/a>, who came to public prominence after using his medical training to help rescue 12 young football players and their coach from a flooded cave system in northern Thailand in 2018, was also on scene.<\/p>\n

Superintendent Cox said the 2019 joint Australian of the Year had been assisting “by lending his expertise”.<\/p>\n

“He’s obviously got great expertise in this area with his history, but he’s also part of a larger group and it’s very much a team effort,” he said.<\/p>\n

– ABC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Sam Bradbrook and Daniel Keane, ABC The man died while diving at Tank Cave. Photo: ABC South…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-162577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}