"Drifting Dan" Carlock wins $1.68 million after being left at sea

[lies]

well this is what his attorney said in 2005 :

"Carlock's attorney, Scott P. Koepke, said his client hoped the suit would ensure that no other Southern California divers go through what he suffered.

"He thought about it a lot and realized he could not live with himself if two or three years from now somebody floats up dead from the same situation, and he did nothing about it," Koepke said.

I guess that now he will donate all the law suit money to skin cancer research and improvement of diver safety

 

[stakanak]

My opinion briefly:
It should have been settled out of court.
The DM taking roll call was incompetent and lied in court.
The other DM's/buddies should have surfaced when they lost their buddy.
Carlock should not have been diving without a refresher course(108' w/out diving in over a year?)
The Sundiver operation has a great reputation.
It should not have taken this case to change the way roll call is taken and if any other operations do not take heed, more lawsuits are to follow.
The DM who took roll call should lose his/her ticket. That is a heavy responsibility and should be taken very seriously.

 

[Cave Diver]

Thanks again, Rex. I posted the thread in the SoCal forum for exactly the reasons you quoted.

I knew there was already a thread in this forum. And I posted another thread in the A&I forum, because I know there are many divers who frequent that forum who knew of this case, and had previously been involved in discussions on it.

And I posted the thread in the SoCal forum SPECIFICALLY because I know there are many of us who really only go to that forum, so we wouldn't have seen the threads in the other forums. I also posted it there so we could have our own discussion - we, the local SoCal divers who know the region, the dive ops, the boats, the rigs, and the practices that are unique to SoCal.

Does this make sense now?

Frankly I'm pretty irritated that my thread got moved. I feel this is a topic of great interest to SoCal divers, and we should be allowed to have a discussion about it in our own forum.

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

Explanation...

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There were four threads on the topic and we received multiple reports regarding this. Two threads were already in existence before you posted your two threads. We sometimes allow a thread in a subforum that discusses local impact when there is already a global discussion on it but starting two additional threads is a bit much. It would have been better just to provide a link to the original discussion instead of starting multiple new ones.

If anyone wishes to discuss this policy, please start a thread in site support rather than continue to add to sidetracks this thread with that topic.

 

[Doug Charney]

I feel for this gentleman, I can't imagine the terror he must have felt, but that award is way over the top. Ray is one of the best Captains I've ever come in contact with. This was not his crew, as others have said, he didn't even have a crew then, he was only the transport vehicle. I think the fault lies with shop and the DM, and also a little with Mr. Carlock for putting himself in a situation he was ill prepared to deal with. Oil Rigs should never be considered as an option for a refresher dive! I've dived with Ray before and many times after this incident, I hope this doesn't effect my ability to dive with them in the future.

 

[doctormike]

...
14. Even if the roll was done properly at Eureka and the search procedures started right away, Dan wouldn't have been found immediately.
15. Dan "owns" the first three hours and 20 minutes of that drift no matter how you cut it.

The notion that if the search for him had started at Eureka t 9:30 means he would have been found faster/immediately simply doesn't have any merit.

Sorry, this just isn't a logical conclusion in this situation. The DM/captain/shop is not being punished for not finding him fast enough. They are being punished for not doing one thing that is clearly their responsibility - keeping track of people as they leave and reboard the boat.

Suppose that Dan was suicidal, and after jumping in the water swam as fast as he could downcurrent, hoping to be lost at sea. And then the DM marked him in at the end of the dive, and then marked him in and out at the second dive site. The DM/captain/shop's actions in that hypothetical case would be exactly as negligent, because the duty that they are neglecting has absolutely nothing to do with Dan's actions. And that seems to be what this case is about, IMHO.

If they had noted him absent, and begun the search as outlined above, then the DM/captain/shop would be 100% in the clear, whether they found him or not. And in that case, it would be entirely about Dan's responsibility as a certified diver. But that isn't what happened. Hence this discussion..!

 

[Mike Boswell]

For those who haven't seen this news item:

By The Associated Press,
Sunday, October 24, 2010 at 2:21 p.m.
LOS ANGELES —

"A scuba diver abandoned at sea for hours by a boat crew six years ago was awarded $1.68 million in damages, ending his legal battle against two Los Angeles County companies.

A Superior Court jury ruled for Daniel Carlock Friday in his lawsuit against Venice-based Ocean Adventures Dive Co. and Long Beach-based Sundiver Charters.

The jury heard testimony that Carlock, who was 45 at the time of the 2004 incident, suffered post-traumatic stress disorder and developed skin cancer from exposure after floating in the ocean 12 miles off Long Beach, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Carlock, an aerospace engineer from Santa Monica, said he prayed to God not to let him die.

Carlock was eventually rescued after being spotted by Boy Scouts passing by on a boat.

He filed suit for negligence, infliction of emotional distress and fraud after the crew of the dive boat Sundiver left him in the water when he got separated from his diving buddy.

The Sundiver, carrying 20 divers, was near the oil rig Eureka when Carlock surfaced 400 feet from the vessel after having trouble equalizing the pressure in his ears.

Despite his absence, a dive master for Ocean Adventures marked him on the dive roster as present on the boat.

Then, to escape strong currents, the vessel moved to a second dive site 7 miles away. Once the Sundiver was there, Carlock was again marked on the roster as having taken a second dive, even though he was floating alone miles away.

After a 23-day trial, the jury assessed total damages in the negligence suit at $2 million. The panel then reduced Carlock's award on the grounds that he was partly responsible because he had been told to surface closer to the boat.

"Dan has changed the industry's safety standards so that other divers won't be left out in the ocean and endure this kind of terror," said Carlock's attorney, Scott Koepke.

Koepke said industry standards had previously lacked specifics on how to count divers. "Now they have to have visual verification and redundancy," he said. "And the dive boat captains, not just the dive masters, are responsible for the count."

A man answering the telephone at Ocean Adventures said owner Stephen Ladd was unreachable because he was diving off Thailand. Sundiver Charters did not respond to messages.

"It has been an ordeal," Carlock told the Times as he celebrated the award at a Newport Beach restaurant with his wife, Anne. "But I wanted to seek changes in the scuba industry. Others will benefit."


Diver abandoned at sea gets $1.68 million - SignOnSanDiego.com

 

[deepstops]

This is already being discussed in this thread:
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/sc...k-wins-1-68-million-after-being-left-sea.html

 

[iztok]

Been discussed already for a while:

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/sc...k-wins-1-68-million-after-being-left-sea.html

 

[fnfalman]

Hi everyone,

I'm a very new diver and reading this makes me very nervous. I have been reading alot of how the blame is partially the guy who got left at sea, and that makes me even more nervous. I really don't see how what he did can be taken into consideration. After all, they left him, they just left him.

There is no doubt that the DM screwed up and the Captain of the boat is the final authority - the buck stops with him. No doubt at all. Inexcusable.

However, the diver also put himself into this situation. He was an inexperienced diver who decided to go oil rig diving. He should have known that oil rig diving isn't your regular joe schmoe diving (open blue water, bottomless are two things that should first pop into any diver's mind, especially a high-falutin' engineer).

He went to said high risk diving without a regular buddy.

I can't imagine how he could have dropped down and missed the structure? The boat drops you practically at the structure and you maybe have to swim 50-ft (if that) to get to a leg and use it for reference to go either up or down. Once again, his inexperience betrayed him.

He lost his buddy but didn't go up immediately yet decided to descend to 108-ft? Which part of training from which dive organization is that?

There were a lot of bad things happening that day and most of them were due to his lack of skill and experience.

His inconsideration should have taken more into account. I'd say that he at least half responsible for the situation that he found himself in.

 

[Mike Boswell]

Engineer wins $1.68 million in scuba diving case - latimes.com

Didn't really know where to post this!

Deputy Dan - I agree with you that it should be posted in basic or advanced scuba forum - there is much of interest here for all divers.