Live Oak —
A 67-year-old Marion County woman drowned while scuba diving in the caves beneath Peacock Springs in Wednesday, Suwannee County Sheriff Tony Cameron said.
Patricia Barkley, of Lady Lake, was diving with a male companion when she began to run low on oxygen, Cameron said.
“He was leading her out and when he looked back she was gone,” Cameron said the man told authorities.
The man immediately surfaced and called for emergency help shortly after noon.
Diver Larry Green discovered Barkley's body about 40 minutes after entering the cave. She was 70 feet beneath the water and roughly 1,200 feet into the cave, according to Chief Deputy Ron Colvin.
Barkley and her companion had been coming to the area to dive for a number of years, said Cameron, but it is not clear if they were equipped with standard cave diving gear, such as a line to follow to the surface should visibility become obscured.
Breaking News
July 8, 2010
DROWNING VICTIM IDENTIFIED
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