Training Scuba Ranch Incident Report

[cerich]

So you agree with me that you would never allow your preteen daughter to engage in an open water training dive with those conditions and with a gaggle of students?

If I were a national training director, I suppose I might know one instructor I would trust with my daughter on a solo class in pristine conditions, but very few of us have those kinds of connections.

Not sure that your decision is especially relevant to the current situation but I certainly don’t find fault with it.

never in a thousand years. However, my understanding of the risks is much different than the average recreational diver parent thinking of their kid getting certified.

 

[cerich]

So can someone explain what type of criminal charges might be brought? And against whom? Would all the professionals be held to a legal standard? Is violation of training standards criminal (if that occurred)? Is gross negligence a criminal issue? I’m just curious about how the Sheriff department is doing a criminal investigation, unless it is some sort of cover the officers ass effort and pathetic attempt to appear to be engaging in a competent homocide investigation after completely dropping the ball.

PENAL CODE CHAPTER 19. CRIMINAL HOMICIDE

https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/penal-code/penal-sect-37-09/z

This page has a lot that I would think could apply

What Is Obstruction of Justice in Texas?

Facing obstruction charges? Get legal help now. Learn about types of obstruction of justice cases, penalties, and why you should contact a defense lawyer.

www.txattorney.us

Of course, I am not a lawyer, and I am also realistic that the thin blue line is ..what it is. I don't expect any of this

 

[cerich]

I'm not sure of the number of hours. It was a long day in the pool. Dylan's pool instructor had commented on how impressed she got everything the first time and did it in less time than was required. Perhaps there was a time limit for the pool portion, in which skills had to have been mastered... I've never taken the course and don't pretend to be knowledgable in these things. But it made it sound like because Dylan showed mastery of the lessons, she finished early? I'm not entirely sure, but I remember thinking that just because she was able to get it done on the first time surely didn't mean that she wouldn't have to practice the skills over and over again.

you have to demonstrate mastery of the skills to move on, however demonstrating mastery doesn't change that the Open Water Scuba Diver course with NAUI requires 10 hours of water time.

Also, per NAUI standards "Daily Hours. No more than eight hours of training shall be conducted during any one day" and 8-6 is 10. That is a standard I have broken, but never with doing diving but with class stuff. I don't know a tech or Instructor trainer that hasn't actually. That doesn't even really matter here as it was first dive so fatigue after 8 hrs of instruction at least is not a factor (other fatigue may be but that would/should be looked at in a comprehensive investigation).

IF a student completes all skills and demonstrates actual mastery (very unlikely) in say 3 hours of confined water training on a Open Water Scuba Diver course with NAUI then they still MUST do 7 hours of water training in open water. So, if planning open water dives an hour long each, that is 7 dives in open water they will need ((or spend more time in pool). If doing 7 hour long dives in open water, you can only do a max of 3 dives a day so, will be 3 days (portion of third day) to get that time. Again, MOST open water dives on the open water course seem to be around 30 mins on average (new students use lots of gas.. temp can play a part depending where etc) and an hour long dives on open water in my experience is really unusual (even when I taught in Cayman and went to a wreck in 22-26 ft of water for an open water dive, rarely did my students have good enough air consumption to do an hour, at least one would run low around 40 mins)

 

[cerich]

So you agree with me that you would never allow your preteen daughter to engage in an open water training dive with those conditions and with a gaggle of students?

If I were a national training director, I suppose I might know one instructor I would trust with my daughter on a solo class in pristine conditions, but very few of us have those kinds of connections.

Not sure that your decision is especially relevant to the current situation but I certainly don’t find fault with it.

when I got certified as a 13 yo in 1981, my parents weren't there (my dad was a diver but had stopped because he screwed up his eardrum really badly when the T33 jet he was flying had an explosive decompression that got him a medical out of the air force..). Know what we did have in a class of a dozen? 2 actual instructors and a bunch of assistant instructors and divemasters that back then had to have assisted a bunch of classes to be one, who then had to assist a bunch more to get on an instructor program, who then as new instructors could only teach open water for the first year then to teach classes above that do some with a more experienced instructor and have them sign off on them teaching higher level. The class was 12 weeks long, 2 evenings a week starting at 5-8 in class and 8-11 in the pool. The first 5 weeks we only did swimming and freediving skills and not allowed to touch scuba gear. Then after having done ~70 hrs of class and another 70 hrs of water work we did two open water weekend of diving 2 times each day in Halifax Nova Scotia, it was freaking cold and the dives were between 20-30 mins each. We did 8 dives open water. I would happily have let my daughter take one of those classes without me around.

Times have changed and diving is taught that it's easy (and it is unless things go wrong) and only lip service to "things can always go wrong" .

I grew up swimming on a lake we live don, I was on the swim team and swimming was something i did a LOT of as a kid, even in winter being at the pool for practice 5x a week for a couple hours and the dive course was ..not easy on the swimming side. Plus, I had a big brother that found it funny to try and drown me when we went swimming in the lake..

 

[kammel78]

I think involuntary manslaughter might fit the definition of what occurred. Probably also some other charges for tampering with evidence.... Against the instructor and perhaps the dive master (if it was his computer that conveniently got "lost").

Of course proving the involuntary manslaughter would be a lot easier with the dive logs that KCSO didn’t get and says don’t exist.

It would suck for the prosecutor to decline to press charges due to lack of evidence (dive logs) and then Armstrong use that to say he was “cleared” in defense of any civil suit.

 

[TostitoBandito]

So can someone explain what type of criminal charges might be brought? And against whom? Would all the professionals be held to a legal standard? Is violation of training standards criminal (if that occurred)? Is gross negligence a criminal issue? I’m just curious about how the Sheriff department is doing a criminal investigation, unless it is some sort of cover the officers ass effort and pathetic attempt to appear to be engaging in a competent homocide investigation after completely dropping the ball.

Realistically, probably nothing serious. Instructor is a cop, which means he has that whole system backing him up and covering his ass. And we all know the certification agencies don't care.

If I had to guess maybe he gets a misdemeanor for obstructing or tampering with evidence, if that. Very little chance there will be any criminal charges on him for the death, even if he wasn't a cop. Doesn't seem like this was premeditated/intentional, and even if it seems negligent to us it's a stretch to think that a prosecutor would be confident that a jury would agree there was gross negligence here, beyond just some mistakes and an accident. Barring some extremely damning physical evidence being discovered (and he already got rid of the computer).

Civil suits on the other hand, totally different animal. There will 100% be a 7 figure judgement/settlement eventually, from either the instructor, dive shop, or both. As I believe there was in the Linnea Mills case, which is looking more and more similar the more info that comes out as to what a cluster this thing was/is.

 

[johndiver999]

Thanks for the answers on criminal investigation.

I would like to read the interview of the girls buddy on that dive- the other 12 yr old.

The victims computer would probably show her falling below the platform, possibly rising quickly and then perhaps falling to the bottom. The profile might provide some insight and would probably show how quickly she got away from the platform, but I don’t see that information as vital in order to allocate responsibility for her becoming lost and for the instructor and dm not looking for her.

 

[gryffin]

There is a petition asking for the agencies involved to investigate the dive computer data. Not a lot of signatures so far, unfortunately.

Can you spare a minute to help this campaign?

Demand transparency in student dive-training investigation

c.org

 

[kammel78]

The victims computer would probably show her falling below the platform, possibly rising quickly and then perhaps falling to the bottom. The profile might provide some insight and would probably show how quickly she got away from the platform, but I don’t see that information as vital in order to allocate responsibility for her becoming lost and for the instructor and dm not looking for her.

Don't think she ever made it to the platform.

We don't need data to allocate responsibility for her "becoming lost". The instructor lost Dylan. That's his responsibility.

The logs will show what time she, Armstrong and the DM descended and what time Armstrong and Roussel surfaced. It will in all probability show the substantial amount of time that they were on the surface before Richard started the search. The search that took a complete stranger 6 min of searching but that the instructor himself could not.

The dive logs are missing for a reason.

 

[texfox98]

So can someone explain what type of criminal charges might be brought? And against whom? Would all the professionals be held to a legal standard? Is violation of training standards criminal (if that occurred)? Is gross negligence a criminal issue? I’m just curious about how the Sheriff department is doing a criminal investigation, unless it is some sort of cover the officers ass effort and pathetic attempt to appear to be engaging in a competent homocide investigation after completely dropping the ball.

Assuming there was no intent to take a life (which is reasonable), the criminal options are manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. In the simplest terms I can explain, manslaughter is when you didn’t mean to kill someone, but you knew your actions COULD kill someone and you did it anyway (disregard an unjustifiable risk). Criminally negligent homicide is when the unjustifiable risk EXISTS, and you SHOULD have recognized it, but did not, and your actions cause someone’s death. So either manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide could apply, but the latter is easier to prove. If criminal charges were filed for the death, that’s the one I would expect.