Actor who worked on Gossip Girl gruesome death as ‘lungs squeezed to size of oranges’

A freediver described as “the most promising athlete in the US” found himself in trouble on a dive and lost his life. Just months before his death, he wrote an eerie, almost prophetic blog post

A freediver’s final moments beneath the surface of the ocean were the stuff of nightmares for many people. Nicholas Mevoli was an American freediver who was no stranger to setting records or taking risks.

He seemed destined for a creative career, first working as a prop technician in film and television, working on hit shows including Gossip Girl and Chappelle’s Show before securing work as an actor and writer with Rising Sun Performance Company. In 2004, he starred in an independent film called Exist.

But the ocean called and, in early 2012, he had started free-diving competitively. Less than two years later, he’d be dead. An uncovered blog post he wrote just a few months before his death now reads as eerie and almost prophetic.

Mevoli experienced great success during his tenure as a freediver, twice bagging titles at the Deja Blue competition. At the Caribbean Cup in Roatán, Honduras, he finished third.

A career highlight came on May 27 2013 when he achieved an American record in the Caribbean Cup, with a dive to 100 metres in the Constant Weight category.

In September 2013, he came in third in the Constant Weight Without Fins category at the free-diving world championships in Greece.

Mevoli continued to push for records but on November 15 that same year, while attempting to reach a depth of 96 metres (315ft) in the Free Immersion category at Vertical Blue, he suffered an upper respiratory squeeze which meant he had to turn back at 80 metres (260ft).

Sometimes referred to as trachea/laryngeal barotrauma, an upper respiratory squeeze is an injury caused by pressure and excessive compression inside the body.

It results in physical damage to body tissues and can even lead to people coughing up blood. Other symptoms include tightness in the throat and chest, pain, difficulty swallowing, shortness of breath, tiredness, and more.

The Divers Alert Network (DAN) reports divers often need an average of one to two months of recovery time before they return to the water – but Mevoli returned just two days later.

On November 17, he was attempting to set an American record at the Vertical Blue competition at Dean’s Blue Hole in the Bahamas. Mevoli planned to complete a CNF (constant weight without fins) dive to 72 metres (236ft) on a single breath.

This dive is one of the most physically demanding and difficult disciplines in competitive freediving.

At 68 metres, Mevoli began to turn back but seemed to change his mind and continue diving downward. After three minutes and 38 seconds underwater, he returned to the surface but quickly fell backwards into the ocean and became unconscious.

Both the event physician and the safety divers tried to resuscitate him for 90 minutes without luck, before he was transported to Vid Simms Memorial Health Centre.

Reports indicated he suffered from pulmonary edema, a condition characterised by an abnormal build-up of fluid in the lungs’ tiny air sacs. This fluid obstructs oxygen from reaching the bloodstream, producing a sensation of “air hunger” or drowning.

Mevoli died that day, becoming the first athlete to die in an international free-diving competition.

According to the Independent, Nicholas Mevoli wrote in a September 2013 blog post: “Numbers infected my head like a virus and the need to achieve became an obsession. Obsessions can kill.”

British freediver and former world record holder Sara Campbell, who met and spoke with Nicholas the year before his death, said this post felt “like a premonition”.

She branded him “the most promising athlete in the US” but had been concerned by his “worrying tendency to squeezes and even shallow-water blackouts”.