The Third Dive: The Death of Rob Stewart

[tridacna]

Rob had completed 10,000 dives according to the CBC blurb. Really?

 

[Rosborne]

Rob had completed 10,000 dives according to the CBC blurb. Really?

I've heard that figure before. It sounds high but he had been diving since he was 12 years old. He was 37 when he died. So 25 years of diving. He shot three underwater documentaries during the past 12 years. So I would say it would not be inconceivable that he'd reached that number. For me, it's irrelevant whether he had 5000 or 7000 or whatever, the point is that he was not a neophyte diver as he was described by some. Any diver with a few thousand dives knows what he/she is doing and its very unlikely they're going to be told to do something dangerous. I think that if Rob Stewart made three dives to below 200 feet in a day, then he chose to do that--wisely or unwisely.

The Third Dive

I think Steve Lewis weighs in with a pretty common sense approach to doing three sub-200 foot dives in a day.

 

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

I just have to figure out how up upload .mov files.

You can't. Upload to YouTube and link here.

 

[mdax]

Zero chance I'd watch a show by rosborne after reading his huffpo article about carlos death.

Taking a clear fatality from breathing the wrong gas, confirmed by an expert and threading in mystery or uncertainty to pique interest is lame.
No reason to watch the same unsupported questions and tactic for another accident.

If you can't connect dots for an obvious, simply understood and corroborated incident there is no reason to look to you to explain another.

 

[RayfromTX]

The problem with titilating "journalism" is that it pollutes our memory. This accident is complicated to completely understand and our knowledge of it is at best incomplete. When we add in rumors and enhanced versions of reality then we later become victims of "well what I heard was". Stories are best kept in the realm of fiction. Real life should be reported by agenda free sources as far as humanly possible. I will pass on these "based on a true story" type documentaries.

 

[kelemvor]

Apologies but I'm not following what you're trying to say. What do you mean by "not much a paper tiger does surprises me any more?" I was interested in much of what Wilkerson had to say, not the least were his affirmations that while all hell was breaking lose he asked Brock Cahill, the only one not occupied, to keep an eye on Stewart. Clearly he did not. Frankly, all of the depositions from the people who were on board that day changed quit a bit from what they said on the night of the accident. An old cop friend of mine says what people say in the immediate aftermath is always more reliable because they have not had a chance to be coached or rethink their story.

Eyewitness memory - Wikipedia

Eyewitness memory is a person's episodic memory for a crime or other dramatic event that he or she has witnessed.[1] Eyewitness testimony is often relied upon in the judicial system. It can also refer to an individual's memory for a face, where they are required to remember the face of their perpetrator, for example.[2] However, the accuracy of eyewitness memories is sometimes questioned because there are many factors that can act during encoding and retrieval of the witnessed event which may adversely affect the creation and maintenance of the memory for the event. Experts have found evidence to suggest that eyewitness memory is fallible.[1] It has long been speculated that mistaken eyewitness identification plays a major role in the wrongful conviction of innocent individuals. A growing body of research now supports this speculation, indicating that mistaken eyewitness identification is responsible for more convictions of the innocent than all other factors combined.[3][4][5] This may be due to the fact that details of unpleasant emotional events are recalled poorly compared to neutral events. States of high emotional arousal, which occur during a stressful or traumatic event, lead to less efficient memory processing.[6] The Innocence Project determined that 75% of the 239 DNA exoneration cases had occurred due to inaccurate eyewitness testimony. It is important to inform the public about the flawed nature of eyewitness memory and the difficulties relating to its use in the criminal justice system so that eyewitness accounts are not viewed as the absolute truth.
References

1. Loftus, E. F. (1980). "Impact of expert psychological testimony on the unreliability of eyewitness identification". Journal of Applied Psychology. 65 (1): 9–15. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.65.1.9. PMID 7364708.
2. Megreya, Ahmed M.; Burton, A. Mike (2008). "Matching faces to photographs: Poor performance in eyewitness memory (without the memory)". Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. 14 (4): 364–372. doi:10.1037/a0013464. PMID 19102619.
3. Wells, G.L.; Bradfield, A.L. (1998). "Good, you identified the suspect": Feedback to eyewitnesses distorts their reports of the witnessing experience". Journal of Applied Psychology. 83 (3): 360–376. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.83.3.360.
4. Scheck, B., Neufeld, P., & Dwyer, J. (2000). Actual Innocence. New York, NY: Random House.
5. Haber, R. N.; Haber, L. (2000). "Experiencing, remembering and reporting events". Psychology, Public Policy, and Law. 6 (4): 1057–1097. doi:10.1037/1076-8971.6.4.105
6. Christianson, S. (1992). "Emotional stress and eyewitness memory". Psychological Bulletin. 11 (2): 284–309. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.112.284 (inactive 2018-10-13).

If you don't want to do the reading, Check out Season1 Episode3 of the show "Adam Ruins Everything". The show debunks many common myths about forensic "science" including eyewitness testimony. It's pretty entertaining, too.

Hopefully, this will help you not repeat such an error. It's the sort of thing that's lead to many news businesses / reporters losing their credibility and being labeled "fake news."

 

[tridacna]

I've heard that figure before. It sounds high but he had been diving since he was 12 years old. He was 37 when he died. So 25 years of diving. He shot three underwater documentaries during the past 12 years. So I would say it would not be inconceivable that he'd reached that number.

I know that it's irrelevant to you but it's junk journalism. Someone fed them that number and they reported it without even the slightest test of veracity checking = fake news.

365 * 25 is 9,125 days. Two dives a day for twenty five years without a break? From age 12? Even if some days were three or four. Entirely implausible. Makes you question the entire premise from the outset. I'd say sensational journalism - #fuggedabowtit.

 

[coolwave3]

When we add in rumors and enhanced versions of reality then we later become victims of "well what I heard was". Stories are best kept in the realm of fiction. Real life should be reported by agenda free sources as far as humanly possible. I will pass on these "based on a true story" type documentaries.

Wow that is quite a mouthful! From what I read from other posts about this, there was nothing but RUMORS and Enhanced Versions of Reality! Where was your objection then?

 

[coolwave3]

I watched a documentary about Rob Stewart beginning of the month and I am not part of the initial opinion giving crowd when the incident occurred. My effort remains to be as unbiased as possible. No skin in the game and I don't know any of the players.

Even Wookie stated that "the chain of evidence was broken" and he followed this from the beginning. I assume Wookie knows that for a fact? Perhaps from the PI? To what extend was the evidence compromised? The upcoming documentary might give some very compelling accounts.

Who is this insurance investigator who was on the boat when the body was recovered? Why was he there and what was his role?

It's one thing to find the body and notify the coast guard to extract/recover it and quite another for divers untrained in forensic recovery unintentionally (or intentionally??) tamper with evidence.
I remember in the documents that there was a radio transmission where they announced that they are doing forensics on the boat before the coast guard got there! Who was the person/persons qualified/trained/authorized to conduct any forensics? Is that why the medical examiner is so beside himself?

A lot of blame was assigned when the story first broke. Now, with this coming out, I am not sure what to make of it. Tampering with evidence is a serious offense and tampering they did: 1. illegally recovering (rather than just locating) the body, 2. conducting unauthorized "forensics" on the boat without the ME present.

What else happened on the boat?

BTW, did the coast guard ever publish their report? Maybe Wookie has it since he mentioned a "report" where more details are listed.

Lots of questions...

 

[Wookie]

I watched the documentary and I am not part of the initial opinion giving crowd when the incident occurred. My effort remains to be as unbiased as possible. No skin in the game and I don't know any of the players.

Even Wookie stated that "the chain of evidence was broken" and he followed this from the beginning. I assume Wookie knows that for a fact? Perhaps from the PI? To what extend was the evidence compromised? The documentary gives some very compelling accounts.

Who is this insurance investigator who was on the boat when the body was recovered? Why was he there and what was his role?

It's one thing to find the body and notify the coast guard to extract/recover it and quite another for divers untrained in forensic recovery unintentionally (or intentionally??) tamper with evidence.
I remember in the documentary that there was a radio transmission where they announced that they are doing forensics on the boat before the coast guard got there! Who was the person/persons qualified/trained/authorized to conduct any forensics? Is that why the medical examiner is so beside himself?

A lot of blame was assigned when the story first broke. Now, with this coming out, I am not sure what to make of it. Tampering with evidence is a serious offense and tampering they did: 1. illegally recovering (rather than just locating) the body, 2. conducting unauthorized "forensics" on the boat without the ME present.

What else happened on the boat?

There was another thing in the documentary that was interesting but since I cannot replay it, I am not sure if I got this straight. Maybe Rosborne can comment. Did you suggest that there was a significant time delay from when the body was recovered to when the coast guard showed up???? You pointed to the Shearwater data? Maybe I got this wrong.?

BTW, did the coast guard ever publish their report? Maybe Wookie has it since he mentioned a "report" where more details are listed.

Lots of questions...

As of today, the Coast Guard report has not been released. It was awaiting 2 signatures. One of the signatures is from a party to the suit, so they are obviously not signing. The other is from a government organization who doesn't want to sign someone else's report.

According to a person on the boat during the recovery (I don't use names because I don't have permission to speak for them) they called the coast guard as soon as the body floated. The body was not boated until some time later. The coast guard was there within a time unit measured in "seconds", like within 30 seconds later.

I speak to the same folks Osbourne did, although I had no idea who Osbourne was, only that there was a documentarian making a documentary.