Jochen Hasenmayer

Jochen Hasenmayer, 2009

Jochen Hasenmayer ( born October 28, 1941 in Pforzheim ) is a cave diver from Birkenfeld in Baden- Württemberg, which caused his spectacular dives again and again hit the headlines.

Caving

Since the 1960s he has dived many karst springs in southern Germany, the Wimsener cave, the Aachtopf, the blue pot and the Falkensteiner Cave. He became known in 1985 mainly due to the discovery of the first air- filled hall of the blue pot, the Moerike Doms, after about 1250 m ( see also blue pot cave ).

To this end, he had to develop in a decades- long process the necessary immersion technique. The well-known as a security fanatic cave diver has simultaneously introduced the unique diving cave diving. This practice is perceived by some cave divers as secure, but is contrary to the basic rules of normal diving.

Because of faulty depth gauge, he returned in 1989 after a dive in the lake Wolfgangsee ( Austria ) to fast on the water surface back. Through a reason to short decompression he suffered circulatory disorders, but his colleagues put him immediately into a waiting chamber pressure and could initially make the paralysis reversed. However, the emergency physicians in the hospitals of Graz and Cologne, the pressure took off again too quickly, so that Hasenmayer is a paraplegic today. However, he did not give up and developed and built the organ builder Konrad Gehringer a Plexiglas caves submarine ( Speleonaut ). With this new dive boat he made more dives and thereby developed a controversial doctrine in the theory of karst formation in southern Germany.

According to this theory the blue pot cave was created during the Cretaceous period, and thus much earlier than is currently believed. Therefore, the blue pot cave could not be drained to the Ur - Danube Valley, today Blautal. It follows further that she must have drained much further south and could be expected in this area with a very deep karstification. As these caves were deep enough to contain thermal water, this could be used for the extraction of Geothermal Energy. As an indication of the age of underwater stalactites at the back of the submarine cave was Hasenmayer given several million years, while the scientific investigation of a drip stone yielded an age of well under 10,000 years.

1986 rabbit Mayers was published theory. She pushed in the professional world mainly on rejection. In public, however, the fascination with the charismatic personality rabbits Mayers is still unbroken, not least because of the overwhelmingly positive media coverage.

Jochen Hasenmayer was awarded the Order of Merit of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.