A late night dive turns tragic for an Alabama man cave diving in Jackson County. Last night at about 10:30 Joel Tubbs and his dive partner got to blue spring they descended downward to Jackson Blue Cave, but something went wrong.

According to Edd Sorenson of Cave Adventurer's Tubbs and his partner were going into the cave following a dive line when something happened to Tubbs. The woman he was with looked back and saw his underwater scooter sinking and saw Tubbs at the ceiling of the cave with his regulator out of his mouth. Sorenson says he was already dead by the time she got to him.

Sorenson inspected the gear Tubbs was using and says it was functioning properly. He adds at this point it appears Tubbs suffered a heart attack and drowned.

Sorenson says if someone has not gone diving in a while or is using new gear it can lead to panic which he believes may have happened here.

"Anything that goes wrong you have to fix it or get out before you're not breathing anymore," said Sorenson.

Tubbs died near the mouth of the cave so his partner was able to pull him out of the cave. Sorenson later recovered the body. He says he considered Tubbs a friend and says he's been diving for almost 20 years. He says this was just a tragedy.

Jackson County caves draw crowds from all over the world and people frequently dive in the caves at night after getting a key to Blue Springs Park from the sheriff's office which is available 24 hours a day.