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

[merxlin]

how many of us say all i need is a ride to the dive site ill take care of myself. the diver should have been back on the boat and if not the operator should have noticed .all are at fault here but the diving public really got ripped off the diver deserved a settelment but 1.6 really what was the damages he wets the bed every time he hears water or he cant perform in the hot tub oh i know during shark week he folds up in the fetal position in his closet thats a lot of damages by 1.6 really lol

Let me just say.........huh?

 

[boulderjohn]

how many of us say all i need is a ride to the dive site ill take care of myself. the diver should have been back on the boat and if not the operator should have noticed .all are at fault here but the diving public really got ripped off the diver deserved a settelment but 1.6 really what was the damages he wets the bed every time he hears water or he cant perform in the hot tub oh i know during shark week he folds up in the fetal position in his closet thats a lot of damages by 1.6 really lol

Let me just say.........huh?

OK, I will try to word this carefully. My purpose will probably fail, but I will give it a shot.

udtfire, you have a number of posts on ScubaBoard like this, posts which draw a similar response. I once had a friend who wrote to a number of message boards at a furious rate, caring little about sentence structure and other niceties. He was a very bright man with good things to say, but he came across as a fool because he did not think it necessary to straighten out his grammar and syntax for such messages. He thought his audience should have the ability and desire to fight through his wording to find the true point of his message. They usually didn't.

I am going to assume that you do have the ability to write in complete sentences and form complete thoughts but have chosen not to do so for the same reason my friend chose not to do so. Please, please, please rethink your strategy. When you totally disregard traditions like punctuation and sentence structure, you make it very, very hard for your reader to understand you, and potentially good thoughts are written off as incomprehensible ramblings.

 

[Trickie Dickie 99]

When you totally disregard traditions like punctuation and sentence structure, you make it very, very hard for your reader to understand you, and potentially good thoughts are written off as incomprehensible ramblings.

Our State Education Dept would really hate you.

 

[Zippsy]

how many of us say all i need is a ride to the dive site ill take care of myself. the diver should have been back on the boat and if not the operator should have noticed .all are at fault here but the diving public really got ripped off the diver deserved a settelment but 1.6 really what was the damages he wets the bed every time he hears water or he cant perform in the hot tub oh i know during shark week he folds up in the fetal position in his closet thats a lot of damages by 1.6 really lol

I ran it through Google's Urban Translator:

How many of us often say "All I need is a ride to the dive site and I'll take care of myself"? The diver in question should have been able to get back on the boat and, if he could not, the operator should have noticed he was missing. All parties are at fault here but the diving public really are the people losing out - I will explain why in another post. Drifting Dan deserved a settlement but $1.6 million is excessive in my opinion. What are the damages? Does he wet the bed every time he hears water or can he not "perform" in the hot tub? Perhaps during shark week, he folds up in the fetal position in his closet? It is possible that he may have suffered real damages but I really believe that $1.6 million is too much. The amount of the verdict makes me laugh loudly enough so that nearby people can hear me.

 

[Doug Charney]

I ran it through Google's Urban Translator:

 

[cocoajoe]

That's a good question, one of the issues at trial was apparently who his buddy was. He claimed it was one of the DMs. The DM denied it. Your approach is a good one IMO. I have heard stories where the anchor is being pulled and the crew is advised that someone is still in the water

As for SS, usually are done, of course, but in my experience there are times when they aren't or shouldn't be done, depending on the circumstances. There were other circumstances here besides losing a buddy. I agree that on most dives losing a buddy is not a reason to skip a SS, but that understates these conditions. That's probably best the subject of a different thread

"He claimed it (dive buddy) was one of the DMs. The DM denied it". So, if the diver lied, doesn't it seem reasonable that his 'buddy' would have spoke up? Something like, hey DM, my buddy's missing. Who did this 'buddy' team up with on the 2nd dive?

Nope, sorry I don't buy it. Classic case of CYA.

 

[inspiritfilms]

What a joke... the article linked at the first post says it all:

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

Really? 400 feet huh? Off the oil platforms? Wow, this guy is lucky he didn't get chopped up in the crew boat props and left for shark bait. The number one rule is don't "drift" off the oil rig. Duh. I've seen boats blasting through those areas at 25 knots with no clue about diving stuff.

Negligence is on all parties, but a boat should be the last one to blame. It's 90% on the DM in my opinion, that's their job. I don't know all the details, but I'm with DrBill on this one. The Jury surely had little real experience with diving. Especially on the rigs because there's no way this guy should get $1.68M.

I just think it sucks that Sundiver was involved with a retarded DM who obviously has no place being anywhere near an Oil Rig dive operation. Those of us who know, understand how dangerous the platforms can be. Sundiver I'm pretty sure ONLY employs their OWN divemasters after this for good reason. I've seen my fair share of retarded DMs, mostly in warmer waters, but they exist here in Cali as well.

Luckily no one died and we can learn a little something about this sue happy assbackwards judicial sytem we all live in.

 

[Ken Kurtis]

" . . . when Carlock surfaced 400 feet from the vessel after having trouble equalizing the pressure in his ears."

Just to be clear about this, Carlock (not surprisingly) is the ONLY one who estimates his distance at 400 feet. And even he says (1) it's an estimate and (2) he's not good at estimating distances.

I testified, and had the math to back it up, that he surfaced at least 1100 feet from the rig, almost three times the distance Carlock estimated.

Also note that he surfaced not immediately after having trouble clearing his ears (which would imply he was under only a few minutes) but after (1) having trouble with his ears, (2) clearing them, (3) descending to 108' when he thought he saw his buddy's bubbles, (4) arriving at 108' to find no divers, (5) then taking 8 minutes to ascend from 108' feet to 15' (average ascent rate - 11.6 feet/minute), (6) tacking on a 3-minute safety stop at roughly 15', (7) and then surfacing.

Total time underwater: 16 minutes.

Carlock also estimates that he lost sight of the oil rigs and drifted with no reference point either at 30-feet of depth, 60-feet of depth, or at 108-feet (the latter of which was 5 minutes into the dive.) Current speed was 1.24mph.

Just to be clear.

- Ken

 

[Doug Charney]

Ken, any word on whether this will be appealed or if the judge will reduce the amount?

 

[dickertious]

Must say I dived with Sundivers and found them to be an excellent operation.

Me too. I've dived with Ocean Adventures many times and found them to be a first class operation as well.