Things started to go wrong as Gary McGrath was coming up from 95 metres below the surface, a feat managed entirely on one breath. McGrath, who holds the British freediving record of 112 metres, was met on his ascent by a team of safety divers who quickly noticed he was struggling as his movements started to slow. Then he stopped rising.
Protocols designed for such emergencies instantly came into play. One diver sealed Gary’s airways while another grabbed his hips, bringing him to the surface together, all while holding their breaths, too.
Without those safety divers, McGrath would not have survived after he lost consciousness 12 metres from the surface. “I woke up and people were cradling me,” he recalls.
The incident, which happened in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in 2023, was his only blackout underwater in years of competing but it is a moment he has never forgotten.
Freediving “safeties” are divers trained to rescue athletes in high-stakes competitions, who do so while also holding their breath. It is a community I am proud to be part of.
In July, I was among 12 safeties overseeing dives of up to 90 metres at the Dahab open championship in Egypt’s Blue Hole. During the competition, just one athlete – a Bahraini, Bassam Sabt – blacked out at depth. He later told me: “[The safeties] know what they’re doing and they are there just for us … so I feel so safe in competitions.”
When I moved to Dahab last year, I quickly became part of a community that lives and breathes freediving. I was hungry to take my training deeper, but I also wanted to learn more about myself and become a safer diver.
When the opportunity arose to train as a competition safety I leapt at the chance – and it has taught me to be a better diver.
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The safety team in Dahab prepare buoys from which freedivers descend during the competition and Tamara Davison, a safety freediver, prepares to enter the Blue Hole
Safety divers, and freediving more broadly, came to the world’s attention last year with the Netflix documentary The Deepest Breath. It tells the tragic story of what happened when the freediver Alessia Zecchini attempted a notoriously dangerous dive in Dahab, Egypt, accompanied by her partner and safety diver, Stephen Keenan, who died. It is a reminder of what can go wrong.
Yet, although freediving is often branded “extreme”, most people trained in the sport see it differently. Louisa Collyns, one of the world’s leading safety divers, says: “After Steve died, it became a reality that a safety diver could be at risk as well, but that was outside of a competition setting.”
Training kicks in when a safety diver descends. The first diver meets the athlete at about 30 metres down, while the second joins them at a shallower depth and a third waits on the surface.
Working as a safety is exciting, rewarding and physically demanding. After taking one long, final breath, I only think about the task ahead as the water pressure builds on my body and I descend into the blue.
I experience a sense of relief when I first spot the diver, before getting into position and carefully watching for signs of trouble, such as a change in technique or a blackout.
My inner monologue cheers on the athlete as we glide towards the surface. “You can do it,” I quietly think. “This is your moment.”
For the majority of dives, safeties do not need to step in. Instead, we have a front-row seat to record-breaking attempts – moments of pure ecstasy and shared victory when a dive succeeds. In some ways, you are a part of the dive itself, and it is truly thrilling.
Of course, it is not easy. Repetitive dives over several hours are tiring, but keeping calm and making quick decisions underwater comes with the territory. Relaxation, usually crucial to freediving, is replaced by deep focus and, sometimes, adrenaline.
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A South Korean competitor, Bianca Sun Young Kim, rises from her dive in Dahab, surrounded by safety divers and photographers
Fear is not something that comes up, either. We are not attached to a rope like the athletes, but we are trained for this, anticipating every possible scenario and keeping an eye on each other as well as the competitors.
That confidence is crucial. “You’ve got to be very sure that it’s going to be a rescue because if you do it too soon or if you’re wrong, you disqualify the athlete, which is quite a responsibility,” says Collyns.
In the unlikely scenario that an athlete blacks out deeper than where the safety diver is, we may have to make the call to activate a system that rapidly pulls up the line and the athlete with it.
While the recreational side is growing tremendously, competitive freediving is also progressing as more athletes push for greater depth. Most agree that the role of a safety diver will need to evolve because, as Collyns explains, “accidents are going to happen deeper and deeper”.
According to the Association Internationale pour le Développement de l’Apnée (Aida), 106 athletes have dived deeper than 100 metres within their competitions so far– and there has been a steady increase of such phenomenal feats every year.
Depsite a push to make safety freediving more professional, the divers I spoke to said there are still few financial incentives. Most freedivers who become competition safeties do so for the love of the sport.
The future of freediving hinges not only on these remarkable underwater feats but also on the dedication of those keeping athletes safe.
“I’m not taking unnecessary risks, it’s all calculated,” says McGrath. “And part of that calculation is the guys up top.”