With 16 Geotech boreholes completed, Rick Lagina, Dave Blankenship, and island historian Charles Barkhouse oversee the drill as it advances into the area of the Chappell Shaft, where M.R. Chappell dug in the 1930s near the site of the seven-foot vault his father William discovered in 1897. Bedrock arrives at 168 feet, and Terry Matheson recommends stopping, but Rick calls Craig Tester to confirm and learns that driller Ivan Gough has broken through into a void. A minor cavity appears between 166 and 169 feet, followed by a far larger one stretching from 179 to at least 215 feet, a chamber 30 feet or more in height. The discovery recalls the work of Robert Restall, who in 1963 drilled through a series of voids separated by layers of rock and concluded he had found a man-made, spiral-shaped tunnel leading to an offset treasure chamber. Ax-cut wood recovered from nearly 200 feet underground adds to the intrigue.
Progress halts violently when a high-pressure hose on the Brewster Drilling rig explodes, knocking crew member Max Williamson to the ground. He suffers a small fracture in his right wrist and a severe contusion on his knee, though safety glasses prevent eye injuries. Rick calls Marty in Michigan with the news, and operations are shut down pending a full investigation. Foreman Kyle Fetterly determines that a combination of plugged debris caused the coupling to fail, and the team agrees to replace the existing restraint system with whip sock connections, a design that tightens under pressure and cannot release. The safety overhaul takes roughly a week before drilling can resume.
During the downtime, Jack Begley, Peter Fornetti, and Gary Drayton continue searching Isaac's Point, where they recover a Hubley Sure-Shot cap gun dating to the 1950s or early 1960s. Since virtually no children lived on Oak Island during that period, Rick suspects the toy may have belonged to Richard "Ricky" Restall, the youngest son of treasure hunter Robert Restall, who was nine years old when his family moved to the island in 1959. The possibility prompts Rick to reach out to Lee Lamb, the eldest Restall child, who has expressed interest in visiting the newly completed Interpretation Center.
Lee arrives with a remarkable guest: her brother Richard, returning to Oak Island for only the second time since the tragedy of August 17, 1965, when their father Robert, brother Bobby Jr., and two other men died from hydrogen sulfide gas in a flooded shaft at Smith's Cove. The team gives them a tour of the museum's Restall corner, where Bobby's original maps hang on the walls. Richard recalls that he and his mother, Mildred, found the 1704 stone at Smith's Cove during the family's years on the island. When Rick presents the toy gun recovered from Isaac's Point, Richard becomes visibly emotional, confirming it was his, lost more than 50 years ago during his first summer on the island. For Lee, the visit draws her brother into what she considers his rightful place in the Oak Island story, and for the team, it provides a living connection to one of the most consequential and tragic chapters in the island's long history.
