page_title: Disappearance of Ben McDaniel
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Disappearance of Ben McDaniel / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: Vortex Spring (Holmes County, FL)
context_page_description: On August 20, 2010, employees in the dive shop at Vortex Spring, north of Ponce de Leon, Florida, United States, noticed that a pickup truck had remained in the shop's parking lot for the previous two days. It belonged to Ben McDaniel, a Tennesseean who had been diving regularly at the spring while living in his parents' nearby beach house. He had last been seen by two of those employees on the evening of August 18, on a dive entering a cave 58 feet below the water's surface. While he was initially believed to have drowned on that dive, and his parents still strongly believe his body is in an inaccessible reach of the extensive cave system, no trace of him has ever been found. The state of Florida issued his family a death certificate in 2013.
  McDaniel had been living at his parents' beach house on the Emerald Coast during what they called a "sabbatical" in the wake of a divorce, a business failure, and the death of his younger brother two years earlier. An avid diver since his teens, he had been a regular at the spring, where he had apparently been covertly exploring the cave despite lacking the required certification.
context_section_description: In the late 2000s Ben McDaniel was going through a difficult period in his life. The oldest of three sons born to Shelby and Patty McDaniel, a wealthy couple who lived in Collierville, Tennessee, outside Memphis, he had returned to live with his parents after his marriage ended in divorce and his construction business failed, the latter leaving him with tax debts of almost $50,000 to the Internal Revenue Service and the state of Tennessee. He was also still grieving for his younger brother Paul, a frequent rock climbing partner during their youth, who died in 2008 at the age of 22 from a stroke. Ben had found Paul unconscious in the family home and tried to revive him; he later became active in raising money for the foundation his parents established to support research into prevention and treatment of strokes.
  The McDaniels suggested their son take a sabbatical, offering to support him financially while he and his dog, a chocolate Labrador he had rescued, lived in the family's beach home at Santa Rosa Beach on the Emerald Coast of the Florida Panhandle. He accepted the offer and moved into the house in April 2010. His parents and girlfriend say the move was proving beneficial, as Ben was beginning to think and talk about moving on from his recent personal setbacks.
  Relocating to the Gulf Coast allowed Ben to indulge in his preferred hobby, scuba diving. He had first taken it up at the age of 15, practicing with his tanks in the family pool. Despite living on the coast during his sabbatical, he preferred to dive in fresh water, becoming a frequent visitor to Vortex Spring, located inland a short distance north of Ponce de Leon.
  At Vortex Spring, which claims on its website to be the largest diving facility in the state, divers descend into clear waters at a constant temperature of 68 °F (20 °C) fed by the Floridan Aquifer. Diving instruction is offered for all levels; experienced divers come for the underwater wildlife and the cavern, which begins at 58 feet (18 m) below the surface. All divers are required to present proof of open-water certification and sign a release of liability.
  For the most experienced divers, some of whom come from around the world, the main attraction of Vortex Spring is the cave, which starts 300 feet (91 m) from the cavern, at a depth of 115 feet (35 m). At the entrance is a sign depicting the Grim Reaper and warning divers that the consequences of continuing past that point could be fatal. The cave continues, steadily narrowing, to a locked gate almost 300 feet (91 m) from the entrance. The dive shop gives the key only to those who can show that they have cave diving certification, which requires two months' training including 125 dives with an instructor or certified diving partner. This policy was instituted after the deaths of 13 divers in the cave during the 1990s, in response to threats from the state to ban diving in the cave entirely. Starting from the gate, over 1,600 feet (490 m) through the area's limestone bedrock have been mapped, to a depth of 310 feet (94 m); the cave's full extent is not known. At some points the passage narrows to 10 inches (25 cm), requiring divers who would pass through to take off their tanks and hold them at their sides or in front, and twist their bodies.
  Ben's dives at the site were regular enough that the dive shop employees and other frequent visitors came to know him. One of the employees, Chuck Cronin, believed that while Ben had the proper equipment and considerable diving knowledge, he was often overly confident in his abilities and not shy about saying so. That opinion, the Memphis Commercial Appeal later reported, was shared by posters on a scuba diving website, scubaboard.com, who had also met Ben during trips to Vortex Spring. (According to a 2014 online comment by his father, he could not find anyone at Vortex Spring willing to be his diving partner, so he did his dives alone.) His parents later defended him from those criticisms by seeing them as positive traits. "Ben was brave," his father later said. "Ben was fearless. He followed his passio
caption: Vortex Spring
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