USA: Audrey Mestre was a French freediver who set world records. He died on 15 October 2002 (11 August 1974). Mestre was born in Saint-Denis, Seine-Saint-Denis, into a family of scuba diving and snorkeling enthusiasts.

She learned to swim as a child and at the age of one month she won the first place in the 54m swimming competition. By the age of thirteen, she was an experienced scuba diver, but French law prevented her from attaining full certification until the age of sixteen.

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She was still in her teens when her family relocated to Mexico City, and because she spoke Spanish well, she eventually attended a university in La Paz, Mexico, to study marine biology.

His fascination for water sports led him to meet free-diver Francisco "Pipan" Ferreras in 1996. As their relationship progressed, Mestre soon relocated to Miami, Florida to live with Ferreras. She began to seriously practice free diving there, and with Ferreras as her instructor, she soon set records.

The two scuba diving enthusiasts married in 1999, and Audrey Mestre broke the women's world record by free diving in just one breath to a depth of 125 meters (410 ft) off the coast of Fort Lauderdale. He broke his own record a year later by descending 130 meters (427 feet).

Death

Tanya Streeter set the world record for no-limit freediving at 160 meters on August 17, 2002, and Mestre died in an initial attempt to break it in October 2002. At the time, it was the official AIDA record for men and women.

She, with a diving team under her husband's supervision (545 ft), made a practice dive to a depth of 166 meters off Bayhibe Beach in the Dominican Republic.

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She continued her deep dive training, and on October 12 she agreed to try the dive to 171 meters. When she reached 171 metres, she opened the air tank valve to inflate the lift bag, which would quickly take her to the surface, but there was no air in the cylinder.

When a rescue diver arrived, he inflated the lift bag with his air supply, but due to insufficient inflation, a strong current, and the non-vertical position of the riser rope, the bag did not lift quickly enough.

She remained underwater for more than eight and a half minutes during a dive which should not have exceeded three minutes. She was pronounced dead at a hospital on land until her husband donned her underwater scuba gear and pigeons to bring her unconscious body to the surface.

The setup did not comply with accepted freediving safety standards, which made the dive controversial and the subject of harsh criticism. Her husband Ferreras was heavily criticized by the diving community for running an under-funded organization to try this record.

The attempt was scheduled for a later time, with insufficient safety divers, insufficient rescue equipment, and no medical personnel on board or on land. Mestre's lift bag air tank was in control of Ferreras, and he forbade any member of the team to see if the tank was full.

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It took nine minutes for Mestre to dive before it was brought to the surface. Her pulse was running when she surfaced, but no doctor was around to help, so Ferreras wasted minutes trying to revive her underwater.

Video of the incident and interviews with the crew and staff were featured in a 2013 ESPN documentary written and directed by Alison Ellwood.