Hello fellow divers, I was on the Red Sea Aggressor that caught fire last week. I am the friend and roommate of the amazing and beloved diver that died due to the negligence of the Aggressor company who have been attempting to malign and victim blame her from the very beginning. Ahmed, the owner/rep was surprisingly allowed in all of our initial Egyptian police interviews; and while representing the Aggressor company, Ahmed repeatedly tried to twist, lie, and mistranslate what we said to the translator and to the Arabic speaking policeman.
First, our friend, the victim, did not return to the room for a computer. Second, the crew did not maintain or perform a 24hr fire watch (attested to by another diver) as we had been told by the crew that they did during our Day 1 safety briefing, and is the norm on boats. NONE of the fire alarms worked. There was NO alarm and NO bell, verbal or other crew alert of a fire or danger. We, the surviving divers are alive only because we woke on our own accord due to the suffocating smell of smoke and made our way to and through our below deck emergency hatch on our own. The crew did not rescue us except to pick us up in the zodiacs after we had to jump overboard just after midnight to save our lives. Although our crew miraculously got another zodiac in the water and got us out of the water and to a nearby ship, it was the a fellow diver and crew from the nearby moored rescuing ship Emperor Asmaa, that shouted for us to jump overboard, just before the tanks started exploding.
The Egyptian prosecutors appropriately arrested Ahmed from the Aggressor, the day after, and I feel confident they will continue to investigate this horrific, senseless and 100% preventable tragedy fully and hold all those negligent responsible for our friend's death, and our near-deaths.
And, as if things couldn't have gotten worse, the Red Sea Aggressor treated us horribly. Despite promising us clothing and toiletries upon arrival at the hotel hours after docking and the police interviews, they left us in wet clothes and towels and shoeless for 15hrs after the fire. A generous Egyptian hotel shop owner, Ramen "Marco" took pity on us and offered all of us our choice of free shoes and clothing. I cannot thank him or the other strangers enough, those in addition to Marco who also stepped in to help: besides the rescue, Emperor Asmaa's crew and guests that gave us towels and their own dry clothes and emotional support; Charlotte Smurthwaite from the Sunrise Marina Resort guest services did everything she could to make things more bearable; a German guest in the hotel dining room that went to back to his room and returned with 3 pieces of clothing for a shirtless male diver, because the only shirt the diver owned was still drying after being washed the night before and he was almost denied entry to eat; and when a UK hotel guest Derek Gale heard me begging the Aggressor company over the hotel lobby phone to give us more than the paltry $123 they finally gave us at 3pm after the fire, which didn't go far considering our needs after losing everything, even if just a "loan" not a handout, so we could buy and have access to a cell for international calls to call loved ones and make arrangements, buy a single pair of underwear, and change of clothes, medication, etc, - to which they told me "they had given us all 'enough'" and refused us even a loan of money until we could get replacement bank cards (BTW, most of us didn't even have single piece of underwear until 2.75days later), Derek returned with hundreds of British Pounds; also a big thanks to all those in the USA FBI and Embassy in Cairo that treated us so warmly, escorted us, expedited our replacement passports and provided us with other necessities and support which the Aggressor repeatedly refused to us.
At one point, Red Sea Aggressor owner David Home even physically attacked and hurt me me, in an attempt to wrestle one of the two international phones they allowed the survivors to use out of my hand after I told him I wanted to speak to his boss and he refused to make the call himself. He had the nerve to call the US Embassy and claim I attacked him. I'm a USAF Veteran, and if my unimpeachable 24 years of civil service isn't enough, I welcome a lie detector to prove him wrong.
Regardless of your experience with or impression of the Aggressor Company world-wide in the past, I hope you boycott them out of principle of the matter...not just for their blatant negligence of a fellow diver's death, but for their victim blaming, which is a slap in the face of our friend and her family, and for the inhumane and insensitive way the Aggressor treated us, the survivors, after the fact. Plus, I don't want any other diver to ever go through this or be treated so horribly like we have been. There are plenty of other great diving companies, please vote with your wallet and go with anyone else besides the Aggressor Fleet. We trusted them by name for the quality and safety record a USA run company represents. If they are willing to rubber-stamp franchises without holding them to basic safety standards, none of us, as guests are safe on any of the Aggressor fleet. Laughably, they've offered us vouchers for a future trip with them as if I'd set foot on an Aggressor death-trap again.
Please post this statement to any sites that repeat the Aggressor's lies and blame the victim, or post a link in a reply to me so I can ask for a correction, we already have done so with another scuba article and they have respected our request for a change to the truth. Please warn all divers you know, and spread the truth from the survivors, on this matter. Eat, sleep, dive, and hopefully survive.
