I've been a search and rescue diver for 12 years. Last week was the most terrifying moment of my entire life.

I’ve been a search and rescue diver for over a decade. Typically, my job consists of finding dead bodies. Usually, it’s just some guy who went in and never came back up. Most of the time, the cause is just gas in their brain that slowly builds up. This is the first time I’ve found another diver down at this location but they didn’t seem to go through the standard process of using a dive shop and a boat to get to the wreck.<br><br>I travel around the country for my job, so I keep my scuba equipment in my truck and my inflatable dive boat in the bed just in case. This particular job was 200 miles out to sea. The water was cold, the current was strong and it rained. For us divers, rain is actually a blessing. It keeps us warm. We completed the yoga-like maneuver of putting on scuba gear while in the boat. Once our rebreathers were in our mouths, it was time to roll backward into the water, making sure not to bang anything against the inflatable sides of the boat. My training says to never look back, and as a search and rescue diver, that’s crucial. I signal to my partner that we’re both good and then we make our way to the bottom.<br><br>We go straight down with weight belts, and after 5 minutes, we hit the ocean floor. You could see the shipwreck about 20 feet off the beach in the shallow reef near the island. We swam to the wreck and entered the bridge. Everything seemed normal. No signs of struggle. A partially torn submersible scuba tank lay on the floor. A scuba regulator was attached to one end and the other end was twisted and torn off. Instinctively, I drown out the surrounding noise and listen for any faint sound of a scuba regulator. Nothing. My partner and I signal to each other that it’s time to search the cabin. We swim back out into the open water and start making our way around the outside of the ship. I search the front of the ship, and he searches the sides. There's no way anyone could go this deep with only a single tank of air. The water is freezing and the current is ripping. We search every corner, but it’s no use. I drown out the surrounding noise again and listen for a faint regulator sound. Nothing.<br><br>This didn’t feel right. I had this sinking feeling that I couldn't explain. Even with well over 1,000 dives, sometimes you just get a bad feeling about things. I’ve learned to trust that feeling, so whatever is making me feel this way must be big. It was time to get out of the water. I followed my training and stopped. I looked around to make sure no hazards were in sight and then I tapped the scuba tank on my back. I inflated my BCD which slowly lifted me up from the ocean floor and then I ascended at a rate of one foot per second. I make a decompression stop at 30 feet for 3 minutes. I look at my buddy and we both give each other hand signals that everything is ok. I take a deep breath in and out and begin to ascend again. I break the surface and untuck my chin from my chest. I look around to find my dive boat and my dive partner is nowhere to be seen.<br><br>I look down into the water and see him about 30 feet down, observant that I’m looking at him. I drown out the surrounding noise from the water crashing against my floating body. He was listening for a regulator sound again. Instinctively I do the same. BOOM! I almost jump out of the water from the faint sound coming from under me. I look down and see my partner signaling that we need to go back down. I know there's no way this guy could be alive, so there's no real reason to go back down unless we're going to recover a dead body. I abandon my safety protocols and look around. The waves are small and there was no wind. I throw caution to the wind and signal my buddy to go back down with me. We make our way to the ocean floor at almost twice the normal speed. I take a deep breath in and hold it while I exhale slowly through my mouth. We hit the ocean floor, and there it is. A regulator is sticking out from under a large section of the wreck.<br><br>I feel like I just won the lottery. We're going to find a live missing diver and get the call nobody ever wants to receive. I signal to my dive buddy to help me lift the section of the wreck that the regulator is sticking out from. He comes over and we both squat down, and we both lift it while grunting. My eyes are closed as I strain to lift it and then I feel the weight lift off me. I open my eyes and there's nobody there. I look around and my dive buddy is gone. I look back at the wreck and there under the section is a diver. I feel this overwhelming feeling of happiness and run over to him. He sees me coming and waves. I wave back and then stop. He's not wearing a rebreather, and his scuba gear isn't the correct color. In my daze, I didn't notice that when I first saw him. I'm frozen. I start to swim back but it's too late. He's already up on me. I'm scared, and in my scared daze, I forgot to close my eyes when I saw him. The creature or whatever it was had already locked eyes with me. Closing your eyes shows that you're scared and submissive which makes you an easy target. I growl at him like a crazy person, puff out my chest and extend my arms to make myself look bigger. It doesn't work. He starts to swim at me fast. I take a deep breath in and turn around and start swimming away at full force. I'm trained to not panic, but something in my gut is overruling that training. I take a large breath through my regulator and swim as fast as I can. It knows exactly where I am. I can hear bubbles constantly right behind me. I take a deep breath in, and my eyes start to water. I can feel it looking at me. My skin is prickling, and I feel eyes on my back. They're right behind me. I stop to turn around, but before I do, I feel a large force come down and tackle me to the ground. My air hose is ripped from my mouth. Everything goes black.<br><br>When I woke up, I was in the hospital. My dive partner was sitting next to me with tears in his eyes.<br><br>“You fucking scared the hell out of me. I went up for decompression and when I came back to look for you, you were gone. They found you on the surface, floating face down with no scuba gear. What happened down there?” He asked.<br><br>I sat there speechless, unable to answer any questions. I couldn't even look my dive partner in the eyes. Still to this day, I haven’t told anyone what I saw down there. I won’t be going back to work any time soon.