Francisco Rodriguez, better known as Francisco 'Pipin' Ferreras was born on January 18,1962 and is a Cuban free-diver known for his achievements in deep free diving and his relationship with his wife, Audrey Mestre.
10 Facts About Francisco Ferreras
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Francisco Ferreras began his underwater career in the little known sport of spearfishing.
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Francisco Ferreras fell in love with the sport and soon realized that, while spearfishing and diving for black coral, he routinely went as deep as the free diving champions.
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Francisco Ferreras decided to start competing in the sport and established his first world record at the age of 27.
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In 1996, Francisco Ferreras established the sports association International Association of Freedivers in direct opposition to the organization AIDA, but this had limited sportive success and closed in 2004.
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Francisco Ferreras had two defunct marriages behind him when in 1996, he met French-born Mexican-national Audrey Mestre who was a freediver herself.
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Much of the diving community critique went to Francisco Ferreras who had hurried an underfunded organisation for this new record attempt that was previously planned at a later date, notably with too few safety divers, lacking proper rescue equipment, with no doctors at sea and shore.
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Francisco Ferreras was in charge of Mestre's air tank and did not allow any of the team to check that the tank had been charged.
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Mestre was not recovered to the surface until nine minutes into her dive, she had a pulse at the surface, but there were no medical doctors available to treat her and minutes were wasted with Francisco Ferreras attempting to resuscitate her in the water.
10.
Francisco Ferreras refused to go any deeper at the time, as he only wanted to match his late wife's last and deepest dive, in honor of her memory.