US cave-explorer Jared Hires, 33, has died on a dive in the Plura Cave in Rana, Norway. He was well-known in the diving community as general manager of equipment manufacturer Dive Rite, the family business co-founded by his father Lamar Hires in 1984.
Jared Hires had dived Plura, the deepest cave in northern Europe, two years previously and was back at the location as part of a team of nine experienced cave-divers of different nationalities.
On the afternoon of 3 April he and two others had entered the system to reach the Wedding Chamber feature, which took them about half an hour.
They had started heading back, with Hires at the rear, but his buddies were alerted to a problem when his dive-lights started waving around, and on investigating surmised that he had suffered a seizure.
The group were 20-30m down and about 250m from the surface at this point, so one diver went ahead to raise the alarm while the lead diver swam Hires out.
At the surface paramedics reached the scene quickly with a defibrillator and tried for an hour to resuscitate the diver, but without success. His buddies were later commended by police for their response.
Youngest CCR diver
Jared Hires grew up in the technical-diving tradition of the USA’s “Cave Country” of northern Florida. Dive Rite had started producing the specialist kit needed by tech pioneers but not commercially available at the time, and evolved into a manufacturer associated with a range not only of extreme but also recreational dive-gear influenced by the requirements of cave diving,
Lamar bought Dive Rite outright in 1997, becoming its CEO and his wife Lee-Ann its CFO. Last month had seen the start of the company’s 40th anniversary celebrations.
Growing up during the golden age of technical diving, Jared’s first diving-associated memory was from the mid-’90s when, aged five, he first sampled breathing under water from his father’s long hose. Within two years Lamar had given him his own mini version of the Transpac twin-set harness he had designed.
At around 14 Jared began his formal cave training and at 15 became the youngest closed-circuit rebreather diver to have been certified. Dive Rite had recently produced its own ]rebreather, the O2ptima.
Describing diving as “my escape and happy place”, he went on to develop his cave-diving skills through regular local experiences but also became a scuba-diving instructor at 18. He described this certification as significant for him because it was the first he had achieved independently of his father.
He went on to become a TDI technical, rebreather and cave and cavern instructor, and said he was always destined to work for the family business. As a boy he had helped to price-tag products, and from 14 was regularly assisting in the shop and taking calls.
After graduating from the University of Florida in 2013 he continued to gain all-round experience in the manufacturing, servicing and marketing sides of the business and became Dive Rite’s general manager.
‘Go-to buddy’
Besides exploring local caves, his favourite being Little River Springs near his home in Lake City, Jared travelled extensively to dive, frequently with his “go-to buddy” Lamar.
He had dived challenging systems including in Mexico, the Giant Cave in Belize, Russia’s Orda, Molnar Janos in Hungary, and locations in Norway, Israel and the Bahamas.
In 2020 he told Diver magazine how despite feeling so at home in caves an early extreme open-water fear had happily been resolved through a positive close encounter with six lemon sharks off the Florida coast. Favourite non-diving pastimes had included motorcycling and college football.
Divernet extends its condolences to Jared’s wife Taylor and their two young children, and to his parents and the Dive Rite team.
Also on Divernet: The Technical Diving Revolution – part 1, The Technical Diving Revolution – part 2, The Technical Diving Revolution – part 3
Cave diving will kill you eventually it is like wing suit flying.