K_girl
Contributor
jc - Common sense tells us that under most circumstances, they are not going to actually prosecute every rescue diver in the vicinity of an accident. However, we know that the reason people are hesitant to become dive masters is because of the possibility of being sued. I have a friend who was a dive master and when a friend of his had a coronary and died while scuba diving. The wife came after the dive master for not getting her husband out of the water fast enough and wrongful death. Of course, she didn't win, but he had to get an attorney and put up an expensive fight and it shook him to the core. Now, you have a situation where a rescue diver is being held responsible based on the fact that he did not rescue. Unfortunately, common sense does not always prevail when it comes to setting any kind of precendent like this and it still bothers the holy heck out of me. Officially, Watson is only guilty of not performing his duties as a rescue diver - and that is on the record. He is not guilty of anything else but. And anyone can go back to outcome of that case and use it and that sets precedent. There is not going to be anything on the record like - oh yeah, what we really think happened was he killed her by turning off her air. They can't put that on the record when they make a deal.