Rob Stewart Investigation

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To be clear, Sotis was not acting as Stewart's instructor. The court documents show that he had been invited to the dive to act as a safety diver by Stewart's partner Brock Cahill. That may seem like a small point but much of the legal case revolves around that small point. -

Yea yea yea.

The question is about what happened, not what people pretend happened or were pretending was happening before hand.

Either he was on a course or knowingly diving beyond his qualifications with his instructor. The difference is only important to the courts etc. The key point is he was assuming that the instructor was looking after him. That is a mistake.
 
To be clear, Sotis was not acting as Stewart's instructor.
Sorry, but I don't buy this argument. They were in the middle of a class. You don't get to just stop being someone's instructor for a day or two while in the middle of a class. Sure, Sotis might have been a safety diver as well, but he was also the kid's instructor. The anchor was a last minute request by Sotis, as this dive is usually done as a hot drop.

The key point is he was assuming that the instructor was looking after him.
Who wouldn't?
 
So if your on a dive say teaching and you do 2 dives as part of the class and something comes up say needing to free an anchor is it standard pratice for the crew to take the instructor and or the student down with them?
 
years ago we had a court case wear a former student showed up on a dive unexspectantly with his old instructor , he died instructor got sued it was the closest an instructor got to being successfully sued.....it went all the way to the jury .......and that here in Canada one of the hardest country to sue take that for what its worth ....
 
So if your on a dive say teaching and you do 2 dives as part of the class and something comes up say needing to free an anchor is it standard pratice for the crew to take the instructor and or the student down with them?
You're asking across a lot of legal terms here. A crewmember is someone who is "in service" to a vessel, as such, they are Jones Act mariners, and covered by maritime laws and regulations.

Sotis was on the call sheet that day as a safety diver, which meant that he was working for the studio and covering a required billet by the studios insurance company. I would imagine that the studio would take a very dim view of Sotis covering crew responsibilities as well as Studio responsibilities.

As Pete mentioned, Stewart was partway through his mod 3 rebreather class, and Sotis was his instructor for that class. I have no idea if Stewart was qualified to take the Mod III class (actually I have a very good idea, but I only have the handset downloads to go on), but that would make Sotis Stewart's instructor, which would be his third hat, responsible to yet another insurance company.

Get why this is so complicated? The reality is that Sotis and others had a duty to care for Stewart by 3 different masters, IANTD and their insurance company, the Studio and their insurance company, and the boat and their Jones Act insurance company. And every one of those folks wanted Sotis working exclusively for them.

As far as the boat goes, I'm pretty sure that there was no agreement between the boat's owner and Sotis to act as crew. But in going down to retrieve the anchor, Sotis placed himself in that liability.

So your question, would you take a student down to pull the anchor, has many answers, one being no. As a former nuke, I'm sure you can dream up some of the others, but they all end in no.

And by the way, we know that Stewart surfaced. It's pretty well accepted that the boat captain/crew has no responsibility for a diver diving, after all, they can't see them or have an effect on the outcome of any possible problem, but Admiralty court outcomes in the United States hold pretty carefully that once the diver is on the surface, they are a passenger again and that the crew does have a duty of care to rescue them. To make it more complex, Stewart and Sotis surfaced together. Sotis was closer to the boat, and so climbed the ladder first. No instructor does this with their student, but that's just my opinion that it's wrong. Sotis collapsed on the ladder, taking everyone on the boat's attention away from Stewart for a crucial short period of time, and in that short period of time, Stewart disappeared. For fun, read the Becky Bryson incident in front of the admiralty judge in Virginia. Becky was by all accounts a good captain (and a friend of mine, although that has no bearing). A diver surfaced in distress behind her boat and the crew failed to render effective aid to the diver resulting in the diver drowning. Becky was completely at fault in the opinion of the administrative law judge, and had her license revoked.

Becky's lawyer at her hearing was the diver who recovered Stewart. Because we can't have enough drama.
 
You're asking across a lot of legal terms here. A crewmember is someone who is "in service" to a vessel, as such, they are Jones Act mariners, and covered by maritime laws and regulations.

Sotis was on the call sheet that day as a safety diver, which meant that he was working for the studio and covering a required billet by the studios insurance company. I would imagine that the studio would take a very dim view of Sotis covering crew responsibilities as well as Studio responsibilities.

As Pete mentioned, Stewart was partway through his mod 3 rebreather class, and Sotis was his instructor for that class. I have no idea if Stewart was qualified to take the Mod III class (actually I have a very good idea, but I only have the handset downloads to go on), but that would make Sotis Stewart's instructor, which would be his third hat, responsible to yet another insurance company.

Get why this is so complicated? The reality is that Sotis and others had a duty to care for Stewart by 3 different masters, IANTD and their insurance company, the Studio and their insurance company, and the boat and their Jones Act insurance company. And every one of those folks wanted Sotis working exclusively for them.

As far as the boat goes, I'm pretty sure that there was no agreement between the boat's owner and Sotis to act as crew. But in going down to retrieve the anchor, Sotis placed himself in that liability.

So your question, would you take a student down to pull the anchor, has many answers, one being no. As a former nuke, I'm sure you can dream up some of the others, but they all end in no.

And by the way, we know that Stewart surfaced. It's pretty well accepted that the boat captain/crew has no responsibility for a diver diving, after all, they can't see them or have an effect on the outcome of any possible problem, but Admiralty court outcomes in the United States hold pretty carefully that once the diver is on the surface, they are a passenger again and that the crew does have a duty of care to rescue them. To make it more complex, Stewart and Sotis surfaced together. Sotis was closer to the boat, and so climbed the ladder first. No instructor does this with their student, but that's just my opinion that it's wrong. Sotis collapsed on the ladder, taking everyone on the boat's attention away from Stewart for a crucial short period of time, and in that short period of time, Stewart disappeared. For fun, read the Becky Bryson incident in front of the admiralty judge in Virginia. Becky was by all accounts a good captain (and a friend of mine, although that has no bearing). A diver surfaced in distress behind her boat and the crew failed to render effective aid to the diver resulting in the diver drowning. Becky was completely at fault in the opinion of the administrative law judge, and had her license revoked.

Becky's lawyer at her hearing was the diver who recovered Stewart. Because we can't have enough drama.

Thanks wookie.

So it sounds to me like.

1. Sotis should not have taken Stewart down on the third dive.

2. Stewart should have known better and should not have gone on the third dive.

3. The boat crew although dealing with a diver in distress should have still worked on getting Stewart out of the water (two come up from same dive one having issues it is reasonable to watch the second for same). In other words get Sotis out have one or two members work with him while another one or two get Stewart out.

In other words EVERYONE F$_(>_$( ED up.

No wonder the courts are having such a hard time.

Did I miss anything.
 
Did I miss anything.
Drama. Lots and lots of drama.

When it happened and I had had enough time to process the whole event, I came up with the following. Stewart, the crew, and the safety divers and the production company missed a hundred opportunities for Stewart to live. Everyone involved had to screw up in a hundred ways for Stewart to die, and they all together created a perfect storm, and Stewart died. This chain of events could have been easily broken had even one out of about 8 people (including Stewart) done their job well.
 
So if your on a dive say teaching and you do 2 dives as part of the class and something comes up say needing to free an anchor is it standard pratice for the crew to take the instructor and or the student down with them?
I don’t think there’s is standard practice for this. The anchor is the responsibility of the boat. If they need help from divers they can ask, but I wouldn’t take a student beyond the limit of their training, probably would not take a student at all. There is of course a spectrum, a RHIB in 8m needing a liftbag inflating at the end of a dive vs a third deep trimix dive only to recover an anchor...

I don’t think hindsight changes anyone’s view that this was a bad plan.
 
Thanks wookie.

So it sounds to me like.

1. Sotis should not have taken Stewart down on the third dive.

2. Stewart should have known better and should not have gone on the third dive.

3. The boat crew although dealing with a diver in distress should have still worked on getting Stewart out of the water (two come up from same dive one having issues it is reasonable to watch the second for same). In other words get Sotis out have one or two members work with him while another one or two get Stewart out.

In other words EVERYONE F$_(>_$( ED up.

No wonder the courts are having such a hard time.

Did I miss anything.
The best way to survive an incident is to not have it. By the time it got to 3 it was too late. You might add item 0 don’t do the third dive at all. Whether the bloke who died was a student or not made no difference to the nitrogen and helium. I don’t think anyone is claiming some incompetence in the water resulted in the incident.
 
but they all end in no.
Or "hell no".
Sotis was closer to the boat, and so climbed the ladder first. No instructor does this with their student, but that's just my opinion that it's wrong.
That's my opinion too. We could probably include just about every instructor on SB in that subset.
You might add item 0 don’t do the third dive at all.
No. They shouldn't have done the first dive. Sotis filed some certification posthumously if I remember correctly. There is simply nothing down there worth dying for. Short cutting training and diving beyond your skills and experience are never a good idea. That an instructor encourages/enables anyone to do this is simply unconscionable in my estimation. The film should have waited for Stewart to gain the essential skills, training and experience to do this.

No matter who is found liable for what, Stewart has already paid the greatest penalty: his life. This is now all about the Benjamins. There'll be no eye for an eye here as the only pain to be inflicted is purely pecuniary.
 
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