The Last Dive

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The Last Dive: A Father and Son's Fatal Descent into the Ocean's Depths
The Last Dive.jpg
Author Bernie Chowdhury
Cover artist Wes Skiles/Karst Productions, Bradford Foltz
LanguageEnglish
Genre Non-fiction adventure
Publisher HarperCollins Publishers, Harper Perennial
Publication date
2000, 2002
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages356 pp (hardback)
ISBN 0-06-019462-6 (hardback), ISBN   0-06-093259-7 (paperback)
363.14, 797.23
LC Class 00-033426

The Last Dive: A Father and Son's Fatal Descent into the Ocean's Depths (2000) [1] is a non-fiction book written by diver Bernie Chowdhury and published by HarperCollins. It documents the fatal dive of Chris Rouse, Sr. and Chris "Chrissy" Rouse, Jr., a father-son team who perished off the New Jersey coast in 1992. The author is a dive expert and was a friend of the Rouses. [2]

The author is a technical diver who, according to writer Neal Matthews' review of Robert Kurson's book Shadow Divers (2004), "was among the first to adapt cave-diving principles to deep-water wrecks". [3] Also according to Matthews, "His book documents how the clashes of equipment philosophy between cave divers and wreck divers mirrored the clash of diving subcultures." [3]

The Rouses were exploring a German U-boat in 230 feet (70 m) of water off the coast of New Jersey, which was subsequently identified as U-869. The pair had set out to retrieve the captain's log book from the so-called U-Who to "fulfill their dream of diving into fame." Although experienced in using technical diving gas mixtures such as "trimix" (adding helium gas to the nitrogen and oxygen found in air) which is recommended for extreme depths, the Rouses were diving on just compressed air to save costs. [2] [4] The younger Rouse developed nitrogen narcosis and was trapped inside the U-boat, and though he was rescued by his father, the two had exhausted their air supplies. They were forced to make an uncontrolled ascent from extreme depths, without making the necessary stops to let the nitrogen in their blood safely dissolve, resulting in decompression sickness or “the bends” which killed them. [5]

References

  1. ↑ Chowdhury, Bernie (2000). The Last Dive: A Father and Son's Fatal Descent into the Ocean's Depths. HarperCollins. ISBN   9780060194628.
  2. 1 2 Miller, Laura (October 29, 2000). "Out of Their Depth: The story of father-and-son divers who died off the New Jersey coast in 1992". New York Times . Retrieved July 26, 2013.
  3. 1 2 Matthews, Neal (July 11, 2004). "Depth charge: 'Shadow Divers' gives the glossy treatment to a true adventure tale, and dive-bombs its credibility". San Diego Union Tribune . Retrieved July 26, 2013.
  4. ↑ Matthews, Neal (July 11, 2004). "Depth charge: 'Shadow Divers' gives the glossy treatment to a true adventure tale, and dive-bombs its credibility" . Retrieved July 26, 2013.
  5. ↑ Slater, Nick. "facebook sharing buttontwitter sharing buttonemail sharing buttonlinkedin sharing buttonarrow_left sharing button The Allure of Shipwrecks". Current Affairs. Retrieved 19 December 2025.


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