Breathe: A Master Diver's Survival Tales

by Rick Bettua, Rob MacGregor

Rick Bettua should be dead. Many times over. The retired U.S. Navy Master Diver suffered a devastating attack by a twelve-foot bull shark that shredded his thigh from his knee to his hip. By the time he reached the shore ninety minutes later, he’d bled out, he had no pulse and wasn’t breathing. Yet, emergency medical workers didn’t give up. His miraculous recovery in late 2020 was just the most recent of his numerous underwater life-and-death experiences.

BREATHE is Rick Bettua’s survival/adventure story. It’s also a story about perseverance against great odds, and his impressive skills to solve problems—and even save lives--under extreme conditions. It begins and ends with the shark attack and his recovery that defied the odds.

In between are fifteen other stories in which Bettua narrowly escaped death during his remarkable thirty-two-year Navy career. In one instance, in a search for a lost piece of a ship’s propeller, he was buried alive seventy feet below the surface and under twenty feet of mud when a tunnel collapsed. When he finally worked his way free after two hours, he then completed the task, so no other divers would be endangered.

The first-person narration takes the reader through Rick Bettua’s evolution as a diver from a kid spear-fishing to one of the elite Navy Master Divers. He never wasted time to achieve a goal. He started spearfishing when he was just ten years old, then entered the Navy when he was seventeen.
Because he loved diving and it was also his hobby, he moved ahead rapidly in his career. He became a Master Diver only one year after becoming a Chief Petty Officer. He achieved the highest rank possible for an enlisted sailor, Master Chief, at age thirty-three, one of the youngest ever to attain that rank.

But Bettua’s promotions never kept him out of the water--or out of perilous circumstances. His skills, his fearlessness and his perseverance helped him survive time and time again throughout his career, and beyond it.

Genres: Nonfiction

238 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 17, 2022

Reviews

[L C · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's been a long time since I was gripped by a book as I was with this. The foundation of what makes this book magnificent is simple, clean, short storytelling and objectively astounding tales of Rick's life. His extraordinary life smashed down into 250 pages makes for ravenous reading - it's density, intensity, and near-unbelievability created unmatched awe. Bettua shows that true stories are more thrilling and incredible than the best fiction.

[Aaron · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is full of interesting content and I learned a lot about navy diving but it’s very self-glorifying and reads like a big-fish story. I hit a wall with the author’s ego about 2/3 through the book and had to push through.

[CASPER HILEMAN · Rating 4 out of 5]

Navy Master Diver Rick Bettua fascinates and if we are honest terrifies us with tales of near death from being attacked by a shark to the more mundane dive mishaps such as being buried alive under a sludge of mud.

[Caroline vlahopoulos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book… very hard to put down. Rick has had an amazing action packed life. Highly recommend!

[Sarah G · Rating 4 out of 5]

decent book. kept my interest. not the best format bouncing from tale to tale without fully concluding them. I didnt realize I needed to be this terrified of sharks....