Suit filed in case of "Girl dead, boy injured at Glacier National Park

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

I know this event has been posted and discussed here and elsewhere since it was released two weeks ago. In this video, I’ve compiled the news reports, legal filing, and input from the family’s representative. The family has established a Linnea Foundation for those who wish to support:
Support The Linnea Foundation

On Nov of 2020, and 18-year-old Linnea Rose Mills dive on a freshwater dive at Lake McDonald, Glacier National Park, Montana. A $12M filed by the family alleges that the Gull Dive Center was negligent in not providing Linnea with proper dry suit instruction, and inflator hose, proper briefing, and supervision, and she was fatally overweighed with non-ditchable weight. The suit alleges that the end result was that Linnea was fatally squeezed at depth and unable to breathe nor return to the surface due to suit restrictions and being overweight beyond the capacity of the BC. The legal filing and other news reports also allege that there are other questions regarding the instructor's ability to teach drysuit, lack of emergency procedures, and the PADI teaching status of the Gull dive center. PADI is also named in the drysuit.



Tough ask good call Jim, you've got stones



full.png
 
You mention in the video that you didn't know if the instructor was certified to teach the course. She had enough dives to self-certify, that I know for a fact. Whether she worked with a CD to train her to teach the course, I don't know. But the self-certification route was there. Not sure if the plaintfill will go after PADI for this.

Procedurally if an instructor has enough dives to self-certify is that something that they have to go through a procedure on, whether via the agency, making a note in their logbook, or by other means? Or at some number of dives can they simply sign off on certs via self-certification without any process, entry, etc on their own account?
 
Procedurally if an instructor has enough dives to self-certify is that something that they have to go through a procedure on, whether via the agency, making a note in their logbook, or by other means? Or at some number of dives can they simply sign off on certs via self-certification without any process, entry, etc on their own account?
20 logged applicable dives and pay a fee. In this case, have 20 dives in a dry suit and wallah! You're now a dry suit instructor.

The self certification is an unmitigated disaster for side mount, but that's different topic .

Self certification is something I'm vehemently against with few exceptions.
 
184. Rather than cancel Linnea’s dives because she was not properly equipped to perform the training dives and safely operate her dry suit, Defendants, Snow and Liston simply advised Linnea that she could enter the water without an operational dry suit and use her BCD as her sole means of buoyancy control.

Then there is the argument that Snow enabled her to dive by loading her up on lead without a way to inflate her drysuit. There is a different name for that.

I think that name is 'assisted suicide' or more accurately a 'murder by consequence'. I wonder whether a prison time would be warranted for named instructor to meditate over life choices and responsibilities...

In my opinion the business operators bear a monetary responsibility for operating such shambles however the instructor Snow is the person (in my opinion) ultimately responsible - and criminally so - for Linnea's death.

To read this story and details in filing is like an ultimate horror.
 
20 logged applicable dives and pay a fee. In this case, have 20 dives in a dry suit and wallah! You're now a dry suit instructor.

The self certification is an unmitigated disaster for side mount, but that's different topic .

Self certification is something I'm vehemently against with few exceptions.
It’s a bit strange to self certify: I am not an instructor but how can you guarantee that the person meet the standards or able to teach to a certain standard?
 
It’s a bit strange to self certify: I am not an instructor but how can you guarantee that the person meet the standards or able to teach to a certain standard?

The instructor submits an application outlining their experience. If it meets the standards then PADI will issue the instructor cert.
 
From Lisa Mills and the Mills family.

upload_2021-6-18_20-54-17.png
upload_2021-6-18_20-54-43.png
upload_2021-6-18_20-54-59.png
upload_2021-6-18_20-54-17.png

upload_2021-6-18_20-54-43.png

upload_2021-6-18_20-54-59.png
 
I am not all that surprised. I am no attorney, bit to me it comes down to a difference between being grossly incompetent and crossing the line to criminality. As I understand it, they would have to be able to prove that Snow knew that her actions were putting Linnea at risk of death. I am sure an attorney will step in and explain it better.
 
IMO it would be difficult to convince 12 jurors from Montana who are not divers that this was anything more than a tragic accident that demonstrates why sensible people don't scuba dive. There are too many moving parts and the individual elements of the accident chain all occur frequently in isolation. People dive overweighted all the time. People dive in new equipment all the time. There's ambiguity about instructional vs. non instructional and buddy vs. non-buddy dives all the time. People dive in drysuits without proper instruction remarkably often and there are even threads on Scubaboard where divers have been told they can figure it out themselves (albeit more experienced divers than Linnea). Diving dry without an inflator hose is a stretch but I'm sure a good defense attorney could find someone who did it without repercussions.

There are other similar accidents that have not resulted in prosecution such as the 2017 Madiera fatality which involved:
  • A shore dive in cold, deep water
  • A student using a drysuit that was unfamiliar to them
  • Presence of non-students that occupied some of the instructor's attention
  • Evidence of excessive weighting
  • An accident chain involving loss of buoyancy control
No doubt there are others, as these are common conditions for instruction in northern lakes.

The task for a prosecuting attorney is daunting, as they must show that the actions of Linnea's instructor were criminal rather than a part of the inherent risks of diving under these conditions. They must do so in a way a non-diver can find compelling.

More broadly, I believe that deep, cold dives in limited viz deserve greater respect than they perhaps receive. The instructor's and shop's actions are startlingly prevalent in tropical locations where the excellent viz, warm water, and hard shallow bottom provide an inherently less risky environment. Inland locations like Montana lack the critical mass of divers to develop the rigorous local safety culture emblematic of BSAC and some of the Lake Michigan shops.
 
Montana Code Annotated 2019
TITLE 45. CRIMES
CHAPTER 5. OFFENSES AGAINST THE PERSON
Part 1. Homicide
Negligent Homicide
45-5-104. Negligent homicide. (1) A person commits the offense of negligent homicide if the person negligently causes the death of another human being.
(2) Negligent homicide is not an included offense of deliberate homicide as defined in 45-5-102(1)(b).


Montana Code Annotated 2019
TITLE 45. CRIMES
CHAPTER 5. OFFENSES AGAINST THE PERSON
Part 2. Assault and Related Offenses
Negligent Endangerment -- Penalty
45-5-208. Negligent endangerment -- penalty. (1) A person who negligently engages in conduct that creates a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury to another
commits the offense of negligent endangerment.
 

Back
Top Bottom