29 DEATH by Whirlpool - Jacob Cockle, USA

Jacob Cockle seen wearing a horse mask as he moves around the whirlpool. (Video snapshot)

Daredevil photographer, Jacob Cockle, 28, often tempted fate in the waters and uploaded extreme footages to his video-sharing sites, where his efforts racked up millions of views, but his luck ran out on May 28, 2013.

As a friend looked on, he was dragged under by a whirlpool in Carnsew Pool in the estuary of the River Hayle in Cornwall – while wearing a plastic horse head mask. He used the mask as a comedy prop to include in his footage.

As he ducked underwater with a waterproof camera to get close-up footage he was dragged down and sucked into the whirlpool.

Jacob Cockle seen wearing a horse mask as he moves around the whirlpool. (Video snapshot)

He momentarily resurfaced but was pulled under again and despite being hauled out alive he later died in hospital.

An inquest in Truro, Cornwall, heard that traces of the tranquilliser drug ketamine were found in his body after it was dragged out of the water.

The coroner also heard that Mr Cockle had severe dyslexia, which affected his judgement.
Mr Cockle had set out to make another video of the dangerous whirlpool, a phenomenon caused by Victorian tunnels designed to funnel sand out of a harbour.

A friend, 70-year-old David Raine, was filming the incident from the banks but was unable to intervene until Mr Cockle emerged at the other end of the pool.

Recording a verdict of accident death, coroner Andrew Cox, said: ‘Jacob went down to the harbour with an expressed intention of recording the whirlpools there.

‘I have seen the footage of him being sucked around the whirlpool while wearing the horse’s head. There is no doubt that Jacob was a competent waterman.

‘There is also no doubt that he was a risk taker. I accept however that those risks were not spontaneous or impulsive but were considered.

‘He was an admirable young man who died doing what he loved.’

Mr Raine told the inquest: ‘I went down around 7:30pm and he was standing above the pool sort of beckoning to me – he was excited.’

He said Mr Cockle had asked him to pass him a smaller camera which was attached to the end of an 8ft pole.

Mr Raine said: ‘He asked me to pass that down because he wanted to do some underwater shots.
‘He had a plastic horse’s head that he wanted to put on. He wanted to put it on in the whirlpool and for me to film it from above.

‘He disappeared and then came up on the other side of the vortex just momentarily, then went down again.’

There was a sign warning people not to swim, but it did not deter Mr Cockle, whom the inquest heard was a strong swimmer. He had previously posted advice on his Youtube channel explaining how to deal with rough and difficult waters.

After his body was sucked into the 15t tunnel, Mr Cockle emerged at the other end of the pool where Mr Raine was able to drag him to the side while a fisherman dialled 999.

Mr Cockle was airlifted to the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro, where he was later pronounced dead. Later tests confirmed he had drowned.

Did You Know?

• Famed Author, George Orwell and his classic Nineteen Eighty-Four was almost never written after he came close to drowning in a whirlpool. Orwell nearly died after his dinghy was wrecked in a weir in Jura, Scotland, tipping him and his young son, niece and nephew overboard without life jackets.
• A documentary team from Scottish independent producers Northlight Productions once threw a mannequin into the Corryvreckan aka "the Hag" (the third-largest whirlpool in the world), with a life jacket and depth gauge. The mannequin was swallowed and spat up far down current with a depth gauge reading of 262 metres (860 ft) with evidence of being dragged along the bottom for a great distance.
• There was a short-lived whirlpool that sucked in a portion of the Lake Peigneur of 1300 acre area in Louisiana, United States after a drilling mishap in November 1980. This was not a naturally-occurring whirlpool, but a man-made disaster caused by breaking through the roof of a salt mine. This mishap resulted in destruction of five houses, loss of nineteen barges and eight tug boats, oil rigs, a mobile home and most of the botanical garden and 10 percent area of the nearby Jefferson Island. A crater of 0.5-mile was created. The lake then drained, until the mine filled and the water levels equalized but the three-foot deep lake was now 1,300 feet deep. Nine of the barges which had sunk floated back.
• A more recent example of a man-made whirlpool that received significant media coverage was in early June 2015, when an intake vortex formed in Lake Texoma, on the Oklahoma–Texas border, near the floodgates of the dam that forms the lake. At the time of the whirlpool's formation, the lake was being drained after reaching its highest level ever. The Army Corps of Engineers, which operates the dam and lake, expected that the whirlpool would last until the lake reached normal seasonal levels by late July.
• Powerful whirlpools have killed unlucky seafarers, but their power tends to be exaggerated by laymen. There are virtually no stories of large ships ever being sucked into a whirlpool.
• Old Sow is the largest tidal whirlpool in the Western Hemisphere and one of five significant whirlpools worldwide, located off the southwestern shore of Deer Island, New Brunswick, Canada, and off the northeast shore of Moose Island, the principal island of Eastport, Maine. 

Via | Via