This article is from page 4 of the 2011-09-13 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 4 JPG
IN ONE of his final interview before his tragic death last week, Clarebased Polish diver Artur Kozlowski, admitted that his mission to map the unexplored caves of North Clare and South Galway was extremely dangerous – with death the possible outcome of each solo dive.
Mr Kozlowski and his diving companion Jim Warny successfully mapped more than 13 km of dangerous underwater caves in the Burren region over the past six years. This work was achieved through of more then 60 solo dives.
“This was virgin exploration so we don’t know what is behind the next corner. We can’t see it because the visibility is so low, about one and a half metres, so it is dangerous,” Arthur told The Clare People last year.
“Because the caves are so small the dives are safer to be undertaken by one person at a time. So if you get into difficulty under there you are really on your own. You are on your own but we do have back-ups to all our equipment and we are both very well trained.”
Mr Kozlowski body was recovered from a cave in Kiltartan, just north of Gort, last Saturday, five days after he undertook his final underwater dive. His body was recovered by a specially trained British rescue team just before 5pm on Saturday, before his remains were taken for a postmortem at University college Hospital in Galway.
The British team, which was led by Coventry firefighter Rick Stanton and John Volanthen, working with the Doolin based Irish Cave Rescue Organisation and the local Gardaí, to complete the rescue operation.
The British team had been flown in as part of an inter-governmental request, due to their international expertise in cave rescue situations. Mr Kozlowski’s mother and sister also travelled to Ireland and prayers were said at the scene on Saturday evening by local priest Fr Tommy Marrinan.
Arthur went into the water at 3pm on Monday, September 5, and had enough oxygen to last until approximately 9.30pm that evening. The alarm was raised when he did not return and it was hoped that the experienced diver might have found an air pocket in a section of the underground cave.
In a statement over the weekend the Speleological Union of Ireland, the national organising body for caving, offered it condolences to his family saying that in recent years Artur has been pushing Irish cave diving to its furthest limits.
“Artur’s life was devoted to cave diving. He died pursuing his dreams, exploring to the limits,” it said.