A New York City man who had reached the pinnacle of free-diving has died after trying a break another record in the extreme sport.

Nick Mevoli, 32, of Brooklyn, worked by day as a prop-master on movie and TV sets but beneath the waves, he was the star.

"When it came to being in the water," he said in a YouTube video dated August 2013, "that was where I really shined."

Related: The extreme sport of free-diving

Though free-diving has been glamorized in movies such as "The Big Blue" and has become increasingly popular, it's also considered one of the deadliest extreme sports. Divers often have to be helped the surface and revived because diving to such depths squeezes the lungs. At 300 feet, the lungs go from the size of a football to the size of a tennis ball.

In May, Mevoli plunged 328 feet on a single gulp of air and become the first American to break the 100-meter mark. He'd been competing since last year.

On Sunday, at the idyllic Dean's Blue Hole in the Bahamas - considered the deepest blue hole on Earth at nearly 640 feet - Mevoli was attempting another mark at the International Free Diving Competition.

He was trying to dive nearly 230 feet - deeper than the Statue of Liberty is tall - and this time without fins.

Related: An exclusive preview of a new and dangerous free dive racing event

As he'd done many times before, Mevoli tipped forward and propelled past the 200-foot mark. Around 223 feet, however, he seemed to hit trouble and appeared to turn back. But he dived again into the darkness to reach his goal.

After 3.5 minutes, he breached the surface of the water - eyes bulging, distress evident. Seconds later, he lost consciousness and never regained it, authorities said.

"Nick appears to have suffered from a depth-related injury to his lungs," the Switzerland-based Association Internationale pour le Développement de l'Apnée, a worldwide federation for breath-holding diving, said in a statement Sunday.

His uncle Paul Mevoli said Nick had taken to diving at the age of 8 while growing up in Florida.

"Nobody could do what he did under the water," Paul Mevoli told The Associated Press.

ABC News' Seni Tienabeso and The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Nick Mevoli, 32, of New York, died trying to set a record at a free-diving competition in the Bahamas. (clubdelphinus/Facebook)