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

[cruiser]

So what IS valid recompense for going through such a horrific experience that resulted solely from negligence? How much is a reasonable punishment to ensure that dive operators never let this happen again, knowing they could be hit with such a large judgment?

I personally am in agreement with the award.

True, I think 1.68 million sends an effective message to the industry. I doubt the guy walked away with this much, though. Attorney's fees for 5 years had to be a staggering amount.

 

[LeadTurn_SD]

Doing a proper "head count" is about as basic a safety rule as there is. Doing it wrong to the point of gross negligence twice on the same trip, with what could have easily been a fatal outcome for the diver warrants a severe penalty.

The diver may not have behaved 100% correctly, and the skin cancer thing, well .....

But the dive op really, totally and completely screwed the pooch twice and the guy could have died. Sometimes it takes a severe "slap" in the form of a big legal settlement to get safety procedures "fixed".

Best wishes.

 

[Scott L]

For the life of me, I cannot understand why this case was not settled before trial.

 

[cruiser]

Here is an interesting question ...

Why didn't Dan's dive buddy at least notice he was not back on the boat? Or why didn't Dan's dive buddy notice Dan wasn't with him for the second dive?

Note to self: Whenever diving from a boat, make sure to talk to other divers and have a mutual understanding to make sure each other is back on the boat after each dive.

Apparently there was some confusion on who his buddy was. Carlock thought it was the DM, the DM maybe didn't agree? It's been mentioned that DM's usually stay on the boat unless their services are requested and/or paid for. If this was the case here, wouldn't the DM have been in the water specifically to be a paid/unpaid buddy? This leads me to believe that Carlock showed up alone on the boat and didn't arrive with a buddy, but that's pure speculation as the buddy thing was kind of sketchy.

 

[cruiser]

For the life of me, I cannot understand why this case was not settled before trial.

I agree. There wasn't much of a defense.

 

[Leejnd]

+1
It would be interesting to know what he actually wanted, and what his lawyers pushed for.

He sued for $4 million.

 

[Leejnd]

Doing a proper "head count" is about as basic a safety rule as there is. Doing it wrong to the point of gross negligence twice on the same trip, with what could have easily been a fatal outcome for the diver warrants a severe penalty.

The diver may not have behaved 100% correctly, and the skin cancer thing, well .....

But the dive op really, totally and completely screwed the pooch twice and the guy could have died. Sometimes it takes a severe "slap" in the form of a big legal settlement to get safety procedures "fixed".

I agree 100%.

A side note on this: the judge had ruled earlier that the jury could not award "punitive damages", so the award, as I understand it, was strictly for damages for the diver's emotional injury. But I personally am glad that it was high enough to give all dive ops pause for thought in how they handle their roll calls.

 

[Bob DBF]

The jury heard testimony that Carlock, who was 45 at the time of the 2004 incident, had suffered post-traumatic stress disorder and developed skin cancer from exposure.

I can understand PTSD, but if someone more knowledgeable can tell me how 5 hours in the water with dive gear on will cause cancer.

It's bizarre about the dive buddy thing (that no one could agree who it was). And he kept diving for 15 mins AFTER he lost his buddy? I think there's a bit of personal responsibility going on here, but it's not clear that the jury realised it.

Nothing bizarre about the dive buddy, the boats I have been on do not record buddies as they may change during the day(s), some "buddies" are same day same ocean, and some, like me at times, just blatently dive Solo. Since no buddy was found to exist, I'm assuming he was Solo and it went bad then he made up a buddy so the SCUBA police wouldn't get him.


There is some personal responsibility but it is not what you might think. I meet and talk to the boat crew with special attention to the DM with the roster. The boats I've dove use numbers to check divers in and out, I always use my name and give the number several seconds after, in no time at all when I give my name they give the number and I confirm. I insure they check me off the boat and when I get back on the boat I thank for any assistance and, when their not busy, recall a highlight of the dive whether they want to hear it or not. If I was missing someone would ask "where is that old fat pain in the butt".


In addition, when you are on deck bulls****ing with your buddies, scan the ocean for divers or anything unusual and let the DM know. I do this as a force of habit from my time in the Navy; On one trip I noticed a diver on the surface, not swimming to the boat, so I let the DM know,he had not noticed yet. In short order the DM jumped in the rescue boat, the diver started thrashing and the DM got there and pulled him out. As it turned out the diver was in the group I was with, his bc lost buoyancy and he could not stay up after dropping his weight belt.

The Boat was wrong, they are paid to bring you to and from the dive site. I doubt that I would have awarded that much but I was not at the trial.


Bob
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I may be old, but I’m not dead yet.

 

[Leejnd]

I can understand PTSD, but if someone more knowledgeable can tell me how 5 hours in the water with dive gear on will cause cancer.

My understanding is that the likely reason the skin cancer claim was included in the lawsuit was because previously, in CA, the law used to require that there be a physical injury in addition to emotional injury, in order to be awarded damages. This is no longer the case in CA law, but old habits die hard and many lawyers still make a point of including some element of physical injury in an emotional injury case.

Caveat - I'm no lawyer, I'm just repeating something I read about this case some time ago.

My personal opinion is that the skin cancer issue is trivial, and probably played very little into the reasons behind the jury award. I'm sure it was more about the horrific experience of being left at sea for hours, with little chance of rescue, thinking you're gonna die.

Nothing bizarre about the dive buddy, the boats I have been on do not record buddies as they may change during the day(s), some "buddies" are same day same ocean, and some, like me at times, just blatently dive Solo. Since no buddy was found to exist, I'm assuming he was Solo and it went bad then he made up a buddy so the SCUBA police wouldn't get him.

No, that's not what has been reported. First of all, there's no such thing as "SCUBA police". There's no law against diving solo.

Second, according to news reports on the case, the diver asked to buddy up with two other divers, so he was in a team of three. When he had problems equalizing, he ascended a bit, was able to equalize, then tried to find his two buddies, who continued the dive without him. When he was unable to find his two buddies, he did what divers are trained to do - he ended his dive and surfaced. His two buddies reportedly assumed he'd gone off to buddy with someone else.

The entire dive last 15 minutes - including the time with the buddies, the time attempting to equalize, the time searching for them, and the 3-minute safety stop. He did not continue his dive for 15 minutes after he lost his buddies, according to news reports.

 

[SCUBASailor]

I agree with the verdict, mostly, but I don't see how the diver could be held partly responsible. How does the fact that he didn't surface near the boat, or that he split from his partner even partly justify his being left behind? I hope I never make a mistake on The Sundiver, apparently the penalty is death. The boat captain dropped him in the water, the boat captain has the responsibility to bring him home. How can it possibly be any other way? If the captain doesn't have a competent person to take roll, he'd better learn to do it himself. There is no mitigating circumstance that can relieve the captain of the duty to bring every diver home.