Tina Watson Death - The Full Story

[boulderjohn]

I just remember reading lots of stories of divers panicking on the way down with no control - their first "deep" dive outside of the four cert dives. If a fifth dive to the max of the cert level, perform 3 skills there including showing neutral buoyancy, would have prevented their deaths.

I think you should look for examples. I can't think of any.

 

[boulderjohn]

I earlier said incorrectly that Tina was certified by NASDS, and I said I did not know the NASDS standards for OW instruction at that time. I assumed that because she had the same instructor as Gabe. I just checked and learned that the date of the NASDS merger with SSI was 1999, and NASDS stopped issuing certifications in 2001. All course work and certifications done after that would have been SSI. At that time (and still today), SSI was a member of the RSTC, a group of dive agencies that agree to follow a certain minimum level of standards. The minimum RSTC standards that SSI would have had to follow for Tina's instruction can be found here. SSI would have been free to have standards that exceed those minimums, but their standards from that era are not available to me. One that interests me is the minimum length of a training dive, which is not included in the RSTC standards. The dives as reported to us here would not have met the minimum standards for PADI, which is also a RSTC member.

 

[K_girl]

clownfishy - no it doesn't dispell anything as to his behavior with Tina. Nice guys don't go cut flowers off the graves of their dead wives out of spite for her family. We have the video. You say this stuff all the time. If they said this or did that then it could only mean this or that. Well, that is what I am saying about that video. You can try and re-explain it all you want, I don't care. I still have the same opinion. Yes, I've heard the plastic flower explanation - what bull-hooey.

There have been plenty of people with absolute proof that they are murders (even serial killers) and other people say - what a nice guy, can't believe he did that. You know there were who said that about Ted Bundy. And Ted Bundy had a girlfriend and they were going to get married. They were engaged to get married - treated her like a queen. Am I impressed by what you said? No. I only know that if Watson behaved towards Tina as reported by numerous people - makes him an ass - period.

---------- Post added at 11:47 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:33 AM ----------

Lookmanohands - your logic does not impress me. You actually made me feel sorry for your wife. Yeah - you could die doing anything, including sucking your thumb. But you and I know that scuba diving is considered an extreme sport and poses great risk. Read the "Diver Down" book. There are a couple of guys, you don't know their names, but they caused the deaths or near-deaths of their girlfriends. It would be difficult to read it and not feel total disgust towards those men. Inherently, women are not the risk-takers that men can be, so it is hard to find an example of it happening the other way around. That is why I think it is so important for the dive community to help identify men like Gabe Watson who are over-the-top in terms of putting their female partners at risk. A woman who states that she has to do something out of fear of not pleasing her partner - is at risk. And if we can get just that far as an admission, then I think we've made some kind of progress.

I am not divulging my sources to you and no amount of cyber bullying is going to change my mind. I will respond to you no further. I will divulge my source privately to divedoggie if he asks me and he can confirm it privately if he wants to as long as he says that he will not divulge the source on this forum. My source has never participated in these discussions and does not want to be dragged into it and I respect his wishes.

 

[clownfishsydney]

K_girl, no, in itself it does not dispel the claims about Gabe's behaviour, but it is unlikely that he would behalf differently with Tina compared to the previous girlfriends. As to the grave matter, I think this has been covered over and over again, it is obviously aimed at Tina's family who were accusing Gabe of murder. Who knows what I would do if I was in the same situation? Perhaps I would do things that I thought would hurt them the most. And by the way, I do not think removing flowers from your wife's grave can ever be considered descreation. You have all the right in the world to do it, although it might not be the correct thing to do.

In addition, I do not consider scuba diving to be an extreme sport. It is neither extreme nor a sport. It is a recreational activity, sports are competitive, diving should never be competitive. Apart from technical divers who are doing dives to depths in excess of 70 metres, it is not extreme. I do not consider any dives I do, even to 50 metres off Sydney, to be extreme.

By the way, I propose to stop answering questions on this tread after this weekend and stop posting any more information at the same time. I do not want this to go on forever like some threads do.

After that date, I will be happy to answer any questions via my email address which is on my web site Michael McFadyen's Scuba Diving Web Site.

 

[Kern]

clownfishy - no it doesn't dispell anything as to his behavior with Tina. Nice guys don't go cut flowers off the graves of their dead wives out of spite for her family. We have the video. You say this stuff all the time. If they said this or did that then it could only mean this or that. Well, that is what I am saying about that video. You can try and re-explain it all you want, I don't care. I still have the same opinion. Yes, I've heard the plastic flower explanation - what bull-hooey.

There have been plenty of people with absolute proof that they are murders (even serial killers) and other people say - what a nice guy, can't believe he did that. You know there were who said that about Ted Bundy. And Ted Bundy had a girlfriend and they were going to get married. They were engaged to get married - treated her like a queen. Am I impressed by what you said? No. I only know that if Watson behaved towards Tina as reported by numerous people - makes him an ass - period.

---------- Post added at 11:47 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:33 AM ----------

Lookmanohands - your logic does not impress me. You actually made me feel sorry for your wife. Yeah - you could die doing anything, including sucking your thumb. But you and I know that scuba diving is considered an extreme sport and poses great risk. Read the "Diver Down" book. There are a couple of guys, you don't know their names, but they caused the deaths or near-deaths of their girlfriends. It would be difficult to read it and not feel total disgust towards those men. Inherently, women are not the risk-takers that men can be, so it is hard to find an example of it happening the other way around. That is why I think it is so important for the dive community to help identify men like Gabe Watson who are over-the-top in terms of putting their female partners at risk. A woman who states that she has to do something out of fear of not pleasing her partner - is at risk. And if we can get just that far as an admission, then I think we've made some kind of progress.

I am not divulging my sources to you and no amount of cyber bullying is going to change my mind. I will respond to you no further. I will divulge my source privately to divedoggie if he asks me and he can confirm it privately if he wants to as long as he says that he will not divulge the source on this forum. My source has never participated in these discussions and does not want to be dragged into it and I respect his wishes.

 

[Dadvocate]

There have been plenty of people with absolute proof that they are murders (even serial killers) and other people say - what a nice guy, can't believe he did that. You know there were who said that about Ted Bundy. And Ted Bundy had a girlfriend and they were going to get married. They were engaged to get married - treated her like a queen.

K-Girl

If it can be said that Ted Bundy treated his fiancée as a queen, thus showing all outward signs of him being a decent, caring, thoughtful man, then this example shows that outward appearances are not necessarily a good indicator of the person’s real character.


As I have said numerous times with this topic, I do not wish to be painted into a corner where I am defending the likes of Gabe Watson. From what I have seen and read about him thus far, he doesn’t strike me as a person who takes diving seriously—obviously—and he is probably someone who could do with some behavioural management classes based on some of his bazaar choices after the tragic incident in Oz.


His idiosyncrasies noted, his behaviour under the incredible stress of the time after his wife’s death should not be touted as the end all be all of his character. It could be that he gets himself into volatile relationships where both parties act inappropriately. This came up earlier in the discussion in another thread. It could be that he is immature and doesn’t know how to express his feelings well without taking a civil confrontation and making it into a petty argument (with both males and females). Who knows?


What we do gather so far from all that has happened is that these outward appearances have no relevance on his penchant for violence or for murder. In fact, all indications after two separate court proceedings is that these anecdotal references to his public face are not germane to any discussion on his guilt for the crime in question. Perhaps they would be interesting window dressing if actually there were evidence of wrongdoing, but sans this, what we have is even more conjecture than what we had about his guilt from earlier threads.


If the evidence of Ted Bundy’s crimes is as you say “absolute proof” of murder, then it is possible for someone to have a public face that is entirely different from the private one he keeps. And if it can be said that people will still continue to ignore the evidence that someone is a monster because these people choose to hone in on only that public image, then the same could be said of the inverse, where the viewing public have created a public image of a man as a monster in the expectation that the evidence would confirm this belief. When this evidence doesn’t materialize (and twice at that!), the people who have formed a foregone conclusion are happy to ignore the lack of evidence for murder and adhere to their previously held beliefs regardless of how lacking their justifications are under objective scrutiny.


In 2011, when Amanda Knox was found innocent of murder after having spent four years in prison Perugia Italy, the Italian public outcry was enormous. Many Italian mouthpieces cited the fact that Amanda Knox was doing cartwheels, smiling and acting silly, and kissing her boyfriend as the police were tending to her dead friend who had been raped and murdered. Clearly the impression these bazaar actions left on a judgmental public was indelible. Even people in connection with the prosecution team were left grasping at these examples of her poor behaviour later on when they were forced to admit that every single piece of physical evidence connected with the crime pointed only to a single perpetrator and that Amanda Knox and her boyfriend could not have been part of this crime in the way the prosecution claimed they were. In referencing her odd behaviour, the prosecutors were trying to cater to the lowest common denominator and perhaps escape the criticism that was coming their way.


Is Amanda Knox the callous, self-centered person the public in Italy believe her to be, or is she the caring girl everyone else she encounters in the US claims her to be? I don’t know, but it seems pretty darn clear after her four-year ordeal that at the very least we can say she is not guilty of murder, whether we like her as a person or not. How much more one wishes to imagine one knows about her is really up to the individual, as it is with those who might like to wax a deeper understanding about Gabe Watson, both his present incarnation and the one that was with Tina on the day she died and also on the days before they left for Australia.


I think it is folly at best to try an expose Gabe as an evil person in this thread based on the actions of that time in much the same way as it is folly for the Italian public who refer to Knox’s odd behaviour as somehow a mirror to her devious soul. Amanda Knox is a different person now that she had been through what she has. I can only imagine that Gabe Watson has become a very new person compared to who he was during the time this was hanging over his head.


What matters most in the end is that in both cases they have the opportunity to turn over a new leaf because they are free. The evidence, or lack thereof, has granted them that much. And I for one am happy that the various judicial systems in place in these two contexts were sophisticated enough to recognize the difference between innuendo and fact.

We all have the chance of justice with this distinction in place and with it defended by the courts.

Cheers!

 

[bowlofpetunias]

There is supposed to be a program on this case on TV here this Sunday. I sure hope it is a reasonable balanced production.

 

[clownfishsydney]

Dr Carl Edmonds has been interviewed as well as Gabe. Gabe told me this morning that they decided to do the story after reading my web site, but they have not approached me at all. Not that confident it will be a good stroy as I have been burnt before by 60 Minutes through work.

 

[Divedoggie]

Yeah, back when I was coaching with the USSki Team, I used to sit down with reporters and go over the results and the the highlights. When I would read the article the next day, it was completely wrong. If 60 minutes references your website, you'd think they would contact you to clarify things... If we watch the show with low expectations, we might be pleasantly surprised.

 

[bowlofpetunias]

Yeah.. I hope it isn't another rehash of the same He said, she said he said and He did, she did unsubstantiated roumors and accusations. I have personally seen and heard enough of that stuff!

I too have worked with the media and sometimes looked at the "interview" later to find it was so edited and misinterpreted as to bear no resemblance to the real story!

---------- Post added at 09:44 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:16 AM ----------

I find myself in total agreement with divedoggie, nothing we could say here can possibly come close to the 8+ years of negative publicity, media scrums, and passionate statements from people who can't seem to get past the distrust and dislike of Gabe. On the other hand I also agree with clownfishsydney and others about the need for this thing to come to an end too. It certainly does no one any good if it deteriorates to rehashing the same emotion laden insinuations.

This thread has however provided some real gems of information about drowning, respiratory processes, panic, training standards and regulations. For the most part we have kept the discussions to a level were name calling and emotions have been minimized. Most of the participants have tried to put aside emotions to discuss the information in rational but sensitive ways... I really hope if this continues that it continues in a positive way but I do hope it winds down soon. All the players in this sad drama need to find a way to return to a normal life. *sigh* I was told yesterday that an appeal has been launched by the Thomas's .. is this true does anybody know?