Suit filed in case of "Girl dead, boy injured at Glacier National Park

[pauldw]

As I understand it, the dive buddy was also a student. Expecting him to do all kinds of things that he wasn't even trained in, during a terrible emergency as he's plunging deep, is nuts. And a GoPro runs itself during a dive. It's in bad taste to fault the guy who appears to have been making an effort at the risk of his own life. Maybe temper the second guessing him a bit.

From the complaint, it looks as if maybe there was no criminal investigation to speak of because people took at face value the initial statement from the dive shop, and those who might have had another opinion were on the way to the hospital in Seattle. Montana could always revisit it if there isn't a good explanation at this point. Negligent homicide might fit.

People were pretty happy to be speculating early on about whether DCS or bad air or something caused this, when it turns out it was something completely different. Maybe once the defense answers, and motions for summary judgment with the responses are in, it'll be possible for people to speak a little more appropriately about this tragedy, as far as liability is concerned.

The dive shop says it's such a weak case that it'll never go to trial? They'd better hope so. I suspect that third photo would make quite an impression on a jury. It'll be interesting to see if the plaintiff can pierce the corporate veil so that the individuals can't hide behind it.

 

[Seaweed Doc]

The weights in her BC were ZIPPED into BC pockets. Not in detachable weight pockets. There was another 20 lbs in her zipped drysuit thigh pockets.

Marie, this situation on the weights had me confused, but I wonder if you and I jumped to the wrong conclusion. I assumed the weight was not ditchable. I'm not familiar with the BCD in question, but my Scubapro ditchable weight pockets involve zipping lead into a pocket that then clips in.

Is there anything in the suit that contradicts this interpretation? If this isn't correct, I'm not sure why the attorney brings up not having had Linnea familiarize herself with the ditching system.

Make no mistake, this situation makes me angrier every time I think about it, usually when I realize there's yet another layer of bad practice that hadn't occurred to me before.

 

[Marie13]

Marie, this situation on the weights had me confused, but I wonder if you and I jumped to the wrong conclusion. I assumed the weight was not ditchable. I'm not familiar with the BCD in question, but my Scubapro ditchable weight pockets involve zipping lead into a pocket that then clips in.

Is there anything in the suit that contradicts this interpretation? If this isn't correct, I'm not sure why the attorney brings up not having had Linnea familiarize herself with the ditching system.

Make no mistake, this situation makes me angrier every time I think about it, usually when I realize there's yet another layer of bad practice that hadn't occurred to me before.

I don’t have time to go through it now but I remember it clearly saying her weights were zipped into BC pockets.

 

[Seaweed Doc]

I don’t have time to go through it now but I remember it clearly saying her weights were zipped into BC pockets.

Yeah, I saw that but I wonder if the "pocket" is actually a weight pocket? I'll reread to see if anything clears this up?

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Marie, this situation on the weights had me confused, but I wonder if you and I jumped to the wrong conclusion. I assumed the weight was not discharge. I'm not familiar with the BCD in question, but my Scubapro ditchable weight pockets involve zipping lead into a pocket that then clips in.

Is there anything in the suit that contradicts this interpretation? If this isn't correct, I'm not sure why the attorney brings up not having had Linnea familiarize herself with the ditching system.

Make no mistake, this situation makes me angrier every time I think about it, usually when I realize there's yet another layer of bad practice that hadn't occurred to me before.

From the lawsuit:

186. In addition, the Gull Dive Defendants did not provide Linnea with a weight belt. Instead, they simply placed lead weights into zippered pockets on Linnea’s BCD and in the thigh pockets on Linnea’s dry suit.

Putting in weights in the thigh pocket is going to be a hindrance for finning. Below is the picture from item 185 where it discusses the dry suit not having a hose attached. It looks like a ScubaPro BCD. From https://scubapro.johnsonoutdoors.com/bcds, I couldn't figure out which one, but it looks like a number of SP BCDs do have pouches where weights could be placed.

But let's assume that the weights were in ditchable weight pockets. having been in a dry suit (through my own stupidity) without an inflator hose attached down to 100 feet, movement quickly is restricted. Even if she was familiar with ditching weight, it is conceivable that her movements were so restricted she wasn't able to do so. I say this from an experience, but I'm a 50 year old man who did compete in powerlifting competitions when I was younger, not an 18 year old young woman.

 

[Esprise Me]

A student diving at altitude should be apprised of those normal precautions during the dive planning. She should have been apprised of those altitude factors when she logged her dive the week before. Did she log her dive the week before? I don't remember it being mentioned. Logging dives is required for certification. Dive planning, which would have included altitude, was not mentioned, IIRC.

There's a mention of her "journal" on p. 56 of the complaint; I can't tell whether that might be a dive log or just a regular diary (do 18-year-olds still keep those?)

248. Ironically, after the Seeley Lake dive one week earlier, Linnea wrote in her
journal about how much she had enjoyed the experience and how she much
she was looking forward to a future in scuba diving with the Gull Dive
Defendants. She concluded her journal entry with these words:
"That drive back I felt this exhilaration of energy like everything is here. Its all here. We made it. Life begins here. Let’s manifest more."
Sadly, Linnea never got the chance.

I had my own incident when I started, but never finished, AOW with my open water instructor (which it turns out was full of standards violation). I was given a cylinder on the deep adventure dive that was leaking. "Oh you've got plenty of gas." This was at Cove 2 in Seattle which has an initial moderate slope, but takes a bit from 80 feet to 100 when following the rope line/border. We make it to 100 feet, I'm at less than 1000 psi when I started with 3400. I realized that I needed to get back to the surface by myself ASAP and that my instructor was a moron. So I ditched him and swam back, reaching the surface with 200 psi remaining. Sure, I could have shared gas with him, but I didn't trust him anymore. I had to take care of myself.

When I first shared this story, I was crucified by people on ScubaBoard.

I don't doubt you at all but I'm surprised by this. Were people criticizing you for ascending alone, or just for not signaling/trying to share air first? There was a thread not that long ago where a newbie was being criticized for making the opposite choice, i.e. not ascending alone when the DM ignored his low on air signal. I think someone even argued that this specific issue is covered in OW, and ditching your buddy if they won't ascend when you tell them to is the prescribed course of action, though I never did find it in my OW manual.

I wonder, if this young woman had survived, and thus people weren't deterred by social conventions against speaking ill of the dead, what the accident analysis here might look like then.

 

[johndiver999]

If they knowingly sent her into the water with a regulator that did not have a compatible dry suit inflation mechanism, all the rest of the "crazy stuff" seems secondary.

Maybe you could justify such a decision in your own mind if you knew the maximum depth was like 25 feet or something and the bottom contours were very mild, but it would still seem to be a radically bad idea for a training dive.

If there was no inflator hose, how could you let this go to a trail?

 

[Seaweed Doc]

I found one place where the bcd weights "could not be jettisoned." This was after a lot of talk about Linnea not being shown how to release the weight pockets, so perhaps she was deemed not capable of ditching? Or, as suggested, she couldn't because of squeeze. Or they were not in a weight pocket but the BCD pocket, as we initially assumed.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I don't doubt you at all but I'm surprised by this. Were people criticizing you for ascending alone, or just for not signaling/trying to share air first? There was a thread not that long ago where a newbie was being criticized for making the opposite choice, i.e. not ascending alone when the DM ignored his low on air signal. I think someone even argued that this specific issue is covered in OW, and ditching your buddy if they won't ascend when you tell them to is the prescribed course of action, though I never did find it in my OW manual.

It was to dive with a leaking tank due to a bad O-ring.

I wonder, if this young woman had survived, and thus people weren't deterred by social conventions against speaking ill of the dead, what the accident analysis here might look like then.

I hope the same. While legally adult, she's still a kid (my view, but I'm an older guy). While I have a very young daughter, I see the deceased like I see the daughters of some of my friends who are around that age, so I still have a protective outlook.

 

[Seaweed Doc]

It looks like a ScubaPro BCD. From https://scubapro.johnsonoutdoors.com/bcds, I couldn't figure out which one, but it looks like a number of SP BCDs do have pouches where weights could be placed.


View attachment 657788

The suit says it's a SP Glide. It has lots of zippered pockets, including the ditchable weight pockets.