The KISS Rebreathers dive team will not be returning to Roaring River State Park this year for continued exploration of Roaring River Spring.
Tisha Holden, spokesperson for the Missouri State Parks and the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), said while the DNR agrees that the work of the KISS Rebreathers dive team conducted in Roaring River Spring during 2021 and 2022 has scientific and interpretive benefit, the team’s permit for continued exploration of the spring in 2023 was denied.
“The permit [application] did not provide sufficient information detailing the purpose or explicit need for the continuation of this project as scientific research,” Holden said. “Nor does it provide any substantive details concerning updated methods, safety protocols or emergency response planning to provide assurances to address any past negative safety outcomes.
“[The DNR does] not agree that any unspecified, additional work [in Roaring River Spring] outweighs the significant safety concerns of personnel revealed in past dives.”
The past work of the KISS Rebreathers team in Roaring River Spring included exploration and mapping of the cave, as well as the discovery, collection and study of subsurface life forms.
In July 2021, the KISS Rebreathers team, headed by Mike Young, CEO of the rebreather company based in Fort Smith, Ark., was able to penetrate a narrow restriction that exists at 225 feet below the water’s surface in Roaring River Cave — exploring where divers had never been before. Previous teams had explored the spring in 1979, and again in the 1990s.
Below the restriction, KISS divers discovered another room in the cave so wide and tall that it could house the Empire State Building.
“Scary big,” Young called it at the time.
In November 2021, the KISS team broke a national record in the heretofore unexplored underwater room by achieving a depth of 472 feet below the water’s surface, making Roaring River Spring the deepest explored cave spring in the nation.
The full depth of the spring, however, remains an open-ended mystery.
Plans to push below the record 472-foot depth, in an attempt to discover where the “bottom” of Roaring River Spring might be found, were curtailed on Oct. 14, 2022, when 27-yearold Eric Lee Hahn of Blacksburg, Va., died during the staging of safety tanks in preparation for the following day’s deep dive. Hahn’s death was attributed to an inappropriate mix of gases in his personal tanks. After the tragedy, the Roaring River Spring exploration project was put on hiatus.
While Young disagrees with the DNR’s conclusion that the KISS team’s application for 2023 did not provide adequate detailing of safety protocol, he does agree that continued exploration of the depth of the spring would be risky.
“We would need to invest in specialized equipment to go deeper,” he said.
Eric Hahn’s parents, Gordon and Linda Hahn, of Charlottesville, Va., said they are disappointed that the KISS team’s permit has been denied for 2023.
“Eric died doing what he loved,” Linda Hahn said. “When we looked back through his photos, all of them were of caving or of diving. We appreciate the KISS divers for giving Eric the opportunity to be a part of their team.”
The Hahns plan to return to Roaring River State Park in October, where they will host a memorial service on the anniversary of Eric’s death. Linda Hahn hopes that a map-dedication ceremony can also be planned.
Young said a documentary of the KISS Rebreathers team’s exploration of Roaring River Cave – intended for use in the park’s nature center— and an updated map of the subsurface configuration of Roaring River Cave have been submitted to the DNR.
“We haven’t yet received an acknowledgement from them, nor anything about their plans for the materials,” Young said.
Roaring River State Park achieved the status of “Most Visited State Park in Missouri” for 2020, 2021 and 2022.
The Hahns do not want the KISS Rebreathers team’s work at Roaring River Spring to be forgotten.
“For us, it’s a way of keeping Eric’s memory alive,” Linda Hahn said.
