Horizon Dive Adventures Complaint Filed in Federal Court

[KevinNM]

Public information is easy. Stuff not yet released is less so.

Don't go to jail over this... But there is a lot of "public" info that is really hard to find.

 

[BlueTrin]

No. Our DMs had their fins and masks on the dive platform with them. Usually with wetsuit around waist. They were 30 seconds from splashing. This guy (400 lbs) made it to the surface, shouted a single help, and went back down. I was in the wheelhouse, and by the time they hollered at me and I got to the back deck, she was not in sight. She actually carried the trail line down to him so he could at least be attached to the boat. She hand over handed to the surface. It was our first rebreather on the boat (Dreager Dolphin) and last for 8 years. That rebreather drooled caustic cocktail on my deck for 4 days. Probably cost me a hundred grand or so in repairs.

100 000 in repairs ? :/

 

[Wookie]

100 000 in repairs ? :/

Old aluminum is porous. The caustic cocktail gets into pits in the aluminum and continues to convert the aluminum into aluminum oxide “paste” whenever the deck gets wet. In the end, after welding the pits yearly just before coast guard inspection, maybe 10 years later, we sandblasted the deck and repaired maybe 60 holes, and sandblasted again. We then painted it, which was the final fix.

There were probably 600 repaired holes in that deck over 10 years.

 

[Protondecay123]

Or the apparent hypoxia that the surviving diver experienced is not the same as whatever killed Rob. There is no evidence either way that they even experienced the same thing. And exactly why Sortis passed out has not been publicly disclosed. Seems fairly clear from the computer log that Rob's loop was not hypoxic. But he was not recovered in a way which did not preserve evidence of what went wrong - so we may never know.

Wouldn’t the cumputr log simply show that the unit was producing oxygen and not necessarily that it was getting to Stewart’s bloodstream? Also isn’t it strange that the Coast Guard searches an area the size of Connecticut while the owner, insurance lawyer and two others recover the remains at the five site? Strange.

 

[Steve_C]

Remains were deep. Could be wrong but do not think the Coast guard was sending down deep divers looking for them.

 

[Protondecay123]

Remains were deep. Could be wrong but do not think the Coast guard was sending down deep divers looking for them.

There wasn’t an opportunity for that is my understanding as the recovery was started a immediately upon discovery. There’s been talk that the Medical Examiner was wrong to declare the demise secondary to hypoxia. But the computer simply shows the output from the device. That wasn’t necessarily going into the bloodstream. I would think that the autopsy results would shed light on that even after three days of decomposition. The water temperature that deep probably helped to preserve the remains to a degree.

 

[The Chairman]

There wasn’t an opportunity for that

They were the recovery team that has been used by the Coasties and the local po-po for years. Years. They did what they've trained to do and recovered that body. There's nothing "strange" about them doing that. It would have been strange if they hadn't. It's strange that people simply can't comprehend how few divers there are that can do this kind of recovery.

 

[Protondecay123]

They were the recovery team that has been used by the Coasties and the local po-po for years. Years. They did what they've trained to do and recovered that body. There's nothing "strange" about them doing that. It would have been strange if they hadn't. It's strange that people simply can't comprehend how few divers there are that can do this kind of recovery.

Maybe it's because I'm ex-Navy and we had lots of divers, but It would seem to me that an area like the Keys would be rich in diving resources that doesn't include the owner of the business and a lawyer for the insurance company (both potentially responsible for or agents of entities responsible for some, if not a large portion of the liability) for that recovery effort? They had to know that their efforts that day were clearly a recovery and not a rescue effort, as they were at the dive site with a deep submersible vehicle looking at 200+ ft. It's hard to imagine that with legal counsel on board they didn't understand the risks that the conflict of interest would appear others, but somehow that was mitigated by them effecting the recovery? I'll leave my internet sleuthing at this.

 

[uwxplorer]

Wouldn’t the cumputr log simply show that the unit was producing oxygen and not necessarily that it was getting to Stewart’s bloodstream?

In the rEvo (as in many rebreathers) the O2 sensors are located after the O2 injection point. The only scenario which would result in high O2 being recorded while much less or none being present at the mouthpiece is when the diver has stopped inhaling. Inhale and the gas circulates, bringing O2-rich gas to the mouth (after a couple of breaths at most). Exhale and it pushes whatever gas is left between the mouthpiece and the sensor (half the counterlung's volume) toward the sensors. If that leftover gas is O2-poor, the sensor readings will drop temporarily, before the solenoid kicks in and inject O2 until the setpoint is reached.
In other words: since the O2 readings never dropped during that short dive, (1) either the victim never breathed (not a valid hypothesis), leaving the O2 at its prebreath value, (2) or the victim always breathed a high pO2 until his demise, where after sinking, the pO2 climbed to the maximum recordable volume and staid there for hours until O2 (which continuously trickles into the loop on the rEvo, in contrast with many other models) ran out.
I believe I recall reading that the coroner declined checking the log, which unambiguously shows that lack of O2 in the loop could not have been the cause of the victim passing out (see above). If that information is correct (that the log was not checked by the coroner before casting his medical opinion), I am really not sure what kind of trust remains in anything else coming from him (most notably a documentary based on his interview).

 

[coolwave3]

In the rEvo (as in many rebreathers) the O2 sensors are located after the O2 injection point. The only scenario which would result in high O2 being recorded while much less or none being present at the mouthpiece is when the diver has stopped inhaling. Inhale and the gas circulates, bringing O2-rich gas to the mouth (after a couple of breaths at most). Exhale and it pushes whatever gas is left between the mouthpiece and the sensor (half the counterlung's volume) toward the sensors. If that leftover gas is O2-poor, the sensor readings will drop temporarily, before the solenoid kicks in and inject O2 until the setpoint is reached.
In other words: since the O2 readings never dropped during that short dive, (1) either the victim never breathed (not a valid hypothesis), leaving the O2 at its prebreath value, (2) or the victim always breathed a high pO2 until his demise, where after sinking, the pO2 climbed to the maximum recordable volume and staid there for hours until O2 (which continuously trickles into the loop on the rEvo, in contrast with many other models) ran out.
I believe I recall reading that the coroner declined checking the log, which unambiguously shows that lack of O2 in the loop could not have been the cause of the victim passing out (see above). If that information is correct (that the log was not checked by the coroner before casting his medical opinion), I am really not sure what kind of trust remains in anything else coming from him (most notably a documentary based on his interview).

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Overlooking or not reacting to one piece invalidates everything?