Filmmaker Rob Stewart's family files wrongful death lawsuit

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This could be a great example of how wild speculation and personal attacks fostered in various public discussion groups can lead to seriously destructive "no-win" situations for individuals and companies even peripherally involved in a dive accident.

A possible scenario now becomes a qualified underwater photographer hires a dive charter in support of some extended range diving and photography, which could reasonably expected to be a high risk activity. The photographer invites his former instructor and physician wife along on the charter, arguably a very prudent action the part of the recently CCR certified photographer. A difficulty requiring an unplanned dive does indeed arise, and the most qualified extended range diver on the boat generously volunteers his assistance for what will likely be a challenging and even higher risk unplanned dive. The photographer insists on going along on the unplanned dive with his former instructor, perhaps selflessly to assist and/or act as a buddy. Something does go wrong, possibly hypercapnia as a result of excessive work, and both divers return to the surface. One of the divers is severely incapacitated, and successfully rescued back in to the vessel. The other diver still in the water, from reports, signals he is OK and attention focuses on assisting the incapacitated diver. The diver safely drifting in the water a short distance from the vessel, perhaps as a consequence of the excitement and anxiety of the circumstances, makes a very simple error of removing his CCR mouthpiece without closing it first. This causes a near instantaneous loss of buoyancy (as cautioned in the manual for the CCR) and the diver sinks underwater. He subsequently is unable to recover from his error and drowns in a few seconds before any third party rescue from the vessel would be possible, even if attempted.

In the 90's, I was on a dive boat in the Lower Keys where a very similar situation occurred. The dives on a wreck in 250 feet of water that day were done, everything stowed and a deckhand was about to gear up to go in to release a shackle to a permanent buoy a few feet under the surface. A experienced breath-hold diver who happened to be on the boat volunteered to save time and effort so we could get underway more quickly and several of us on the boat agreed because we wanted to get underway. The diver had some difficulty pulling the pin due to a strong current, and made several repets in short order perhaps also as result of feeling some "peer pressure" to perform. In that case, a deckhand was looking right at the diver when the diver went unconscious near the surface at the line (shallow water blackout) and began to sink. The alarm was raised and in mere seconds the divemaster did a heroic and frankly spectacular "ditch and don" into the water chasing the unconscious diver. Alas, he was never able to reach the diver who was already too deep so we geared up, found the body and I recovered him to the back of the boat where CPR was unsuccessful. The point being, that even with near instant rescue response, a skilled diver made an incredibly simple mistake that cost his life. Nobody filed a lawsuit.

25 years later, perhaps as a result of all the internet "blamestorming" and uninformed speculation plus pointless personal attacks, a lot of individuals on all sides of this recent unfortunate fatality will experience months, probably years, of undeserved and unnecessary additional pain and suffering.induced by the American civil justice system and lottery.
 
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This could be a great example of how wild speculation fostered in various public discussion groups can lead to seriously destructive "no-win" situations for individuals and companies even peripherally involved in a dive accident.

Give the family and the lawyer some credit. They didn't file a lawsuit because of internet speculation.
 
Anything that lawyer said could be checked within minutes with access to the emails they exchanged...
 
So as Pete stated the press conference served a few purposes but primary to inflict pain. I also think based on the attorneys stance they make accusations of poor and rushed training. they are hoping that he and his business suffer at this point as well. In addition he cites that Mr Sotis has a different set of standards for decompression than the Navy and what is considered acceptable. They are hoping that others that had a "poor training" experience with Mr Sotis will come out after seeing the press conference and show a pattern of rushing the training.
I think that Rob's families lawyers will have a hard fight if they are relying on Navy tables to prove no more than 2 dives a day and poor deco standards. I also think that proving inadequate training will also be a tough fight if they base it on anecdotal evidence of sucky training.
 
Other than some comments by previous students of Sotis, what evidence is there that the training was rushed or incomplete? If the training was complete and Rob was a certified trimix diver what should Mr Sotis' duty of care been when diving with a certified diver. Doing 3 trimix dives a day is not smart, but certainly not criminal. If they did 3 dives a day during training that is a different matter but once a student is certified, even if the ink hasn't dried on the cert the instructor's duty of care is far less. This is where training records are very important.
I am also still not clear as to what agency Mr Stewart was certified through.
 
Give the family and the lawyer some credit. They didn't file a lawsuit because of internet speculation.
You'd be surprised when money is no object and revenge is the point of the exercise.
 
I am also still not clear as to what agency Mr Stewart was certified through.
I agree. I don't know if IANTD was the agency or not, but at least some evidence points that way.
 
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The plaintiff lawyers know that the court of public opinion is weighing in their favor.
 
I may be wrong in my recollection, but:

I thought that the original reports saying Sotis, was incapacitated (fainted I believe?) were corrected by Mr Sotis himself on a Facebook post (Add Helium?), stating he wasn't taken ill (or something similar)?

The Statement from his lawyers seem to contradict that.

I'm confused
addhelium-PeterSotis2.jpg
 
The plaintiff lawyers know that the court of public opinion is weighing in their favor.

Not with me. That interview/briefing they posted came across negatively to their case.

However I am scared since we will all die because the oceans will not be saved now.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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