Diver Dead in South Florida

[jenmhester]

@jenmhester Thanks so much for the update. I've been checking every so often and even configured a Google search to email me with updates but I didn't see anything.

Justice for Mollie and any of us who have ever been in the water behind Dustin's boat and could easily have been the ones sucked into those props.

It has not been published on mainstream media yet to my knowledge. Also, as a federal case, you have to have access to the PACER system to access court filings and documents. The update I posted is firsthand knowledge, I was in the courtroom yesterday.

I also testified for over 2 hours last week as the diver with the speargun that was injured the day prior to Mollie's death. It has been a long time, and I am relieved to have it over with.

 

[jenmhester]

Oh geez I'm sorry you went through that and I'm glad that (as I understand it) your injuries were minor. I hope you weren't too traumatized by the ordeal and you're still diving.

Yes, still nothing comes up on a Google search I figured you had some inside knowledge not available to the general public.

How was Dustin looking? I had seen a photo of him a year or so back and he seemed to have aged considerably.

Thanks, it was certainly traumatic and I am sure it will follow me forever. And yes, my injuries were minor in comparison to Mollie's. I am absolutely still actively diving thanks to some good friends who "forced" me to continue diving in the days and weeks following the incident, otherwise I may not ever have dived again.

Dustin looked... not good.

 

[sheeper]

An update for this thread.... Yesterday, March 4th, Dustin was found guilty by a jury in Federal court on all 5 counts:

1) Seaman's Manslaughter
2) Making false statements to the government (lied to USCG as to the purpose of his new vessel)
3-5) 3 counts of wire fraud for applying for and receiving 2 fraudulent PPP loans and loan forgiveness for said loans

Immediately following the verdict, the judge denied a motion that he be released on bond, and he was remanded into the custody of 2 US Marshalls until sentencing on June 12th. He is facing 35 years in federal prison.

Justice for Mollie.... 5 years later. <3

thanks for the update. it's about time....

 

[jenmhester]

thanks for the update. it's about time....

Yes, 5 years was a very long time to wait for justice. It is nice to not have this lingering over my head any longer.

 

[jenmhester]

And the official publication: Federal Jury Finds Owner and Captain of Southern Comfort Guilty of Seaman’s Manslaughter and Fraud

 

[dmaziuk]

So according to a medical examiner she didn't bleed out despite her legs being chopped up, she drowned because of the "pain". Sounds rather odd.

Legs aren't the neck and the femoral artery isn't the carotid: it takes a few minutes to bleed out from there.

You scream from the pain, you inhale water, you drown long before you bleed out.

 

[jenmhester]

Thanks again for sharing that information. I hadn't read anything about the propellers starting up by themselves, both the day before during your incident and the more horrific one the very next day.

It was my understanding that Dustin was unfamiliar with handling the much larger boat, and he couldn't see over the transom, and so didn't respond fast enough to stop backing up over the divers, which happened as a result of his rather reckless way of picking up divers by maneuvering the stern towards them as they waited.

This statement in the publication doesn't make much sense: "A medical examiner testified that while the victim’s many deep chop wounds and leg fractures were not fatal on their own, they caused serious pain that contributed to the victim’s death by drowning."

So according to a medical examiner she didn't bleed out despite her legs being chopped up, she drowned because of the "pain". Sounds rather odd.

It was a common assumption that the captain had backed over the divers (both myself and Mollie the next day) however; that was not the reality. The captain had the vessel in neutral for both incidents. What people did not know was that the captain had recently retrofitted this Ocean Yacht into a dive boat, adding benches and a dive platform and ladder etc. Part of the modifications involved removing throttle controls from the deck because he wanted the only controls to be located at the helm on the flybridge. This required tampering with the throttle control cables and as most folks with much boat experience know, this is a tricky process and requires some pretty serious fine-tuning to get just right (ie the adjustments have to be correct for the throttle control to correspond precisely to the transmission gears). The captain had failed in this regard. There were numerous propulsion and mechanical issues going on the day of my injury, so much so that we ran aground coming into the marina with the vessel having lost reverse in both engines. After I left for the day, I messaged the captain to make sure he knew what I had seen coming up from my 2nd dive. Specifically, that I had seen the port side prop engaging when I knew he had the throttle in the neutral position. He was dismissive of me and quick to blame a shorting issue which made no sense to me whatsoever to the point that I repeated that the prop was engaging. None of the issues were reported to the USCG as is required. None of the divers were warned of the issue with the propellor. In short, the captain made a series of bad decisions and gross negligence that led to Mollie's death the next day.

I believe the ME report described something like 9 chop wounds to the lower extremities (mostly thighs and legs). While I have read the ME report, I will not repeat those details here. I think what the article was trying to state was that had Mollie only experienced the chop wounds without the complexity of being underwater, she might have survived them with immediate medical care. But because she was trapped underwater in the propellor and likely panicking (understandably so), she drowned. I believe the actual ME report mentioned blood loss contributing to cause of death.

 

[jenmhester]

Did you know that long before this incident Dustin was given the nickname "Captain Zip Tie"?

He started with small repairs and some jury rigging and it just got worse and worse.

As someone who had been diving with this captain since 2016, I was aware of a great many things at the time of this incident in 2020. I had seen shortcuts made and risks taken and I had also seen him handle tricky situations really well, firsthand. However, there were several different factors in play in March 2020 that unfortunately culminated in this tragedy. As I said, it was ultimately a series of bad decisions...

 

[jenmhester]

It was an escalating cycle of bad decisions. Each one he got away with made the next one that much easier for him. After a while breaking the rules and doing it his way was par for the course.

Around here they call that "normalization of deviance".

Absolutely agree and I am glad that he won't be able to harm another diver again.

The investigative and prosecuting teams including the USCG, FWC and the US Attorney's Office Southern District of Florida did a fantastic job on this case.