A lone survivor in a group of Italian tourists killed while scuba diving escaped death in the Maldives on Thursday — because she stayed behind on a yacht while her friends took the plunge.
A sixth diver, a student at University of Genoa, never entered the water as the rest of the group dove 160 feet into a cave in Vaavu Atoll, according to the Italian media outlet liberoquotidiano.it.
It wasn’t immediately clear why she stayed behind on the yacht, the Duke of York, while the rest of her group explored the underwater cave near the island of Alimatha.
The student, who was not identified, had been geared up to dive when she changed her mind and stayed on board, the outlet reported.
She was the “only direct survivor of that day” and a “key witness for reconstructing the final moments before the accident,” the outlet reported — though authorities have said there were roughly two dozen other non-crew members on the boat over the course of the day Thursday.
Monica Montefalcone, a marine biology professor at the University of Genoa, and her 20-year-old daughter, Giorgia Sommacal, vanished during the scuba trip.
The young woman was headed home to her family Friday, the outlet reported.
Three other adventure seekers on the trip — Muriel Oddenino of Turin, Gianluca Benedetti of Padua, and Federico Gualtieri of Borgomanero — also failed to resurface from the dive.
Searches were halted due to rough weather Friday, and local police were investigating.
Experts have said oxygen toxicity and sheer panic are possible factors that led to the deaths of the five scuba divers.
“It’s likely that something went wrong with the tanks,” Pulmonologist Claudio Micheletto told the Italian outlet Adnkronos on Thursday.
“Death from oxygen toxicity, or hyperoxia, is one of the most dramatic deaths that can occur during a dive — a horrible end,” added Micheletto, the director of pulmonology at the University Hospital of Verona.
Panic may also have played a part, according to Alfonso Bolognini, president of the Italian Society of Underwater and Hyperbaric Medicine.
“Inside a cave at a depth of 50 meters, all it takes is a problem for a diver or a panic attack for a diver,” he said.
“The agitation will cause the water to become cloudy and can impair visibility,” which can lead to “fatal errors.”
But he stressed, “It’s not easy to say now what exactly may have happened at the bottom of the sea.”