A 12-Year-Old's Diving Death Brings a Lawsuit

A wrongful death lawsuit by the family of Dylan Harrison, the Texas 12-year-old who died during an entry-level NAUI scuba course, severely challenges PADI's and NAUI's certification process in so many ways that it could upend the industry. That is, if it doesn't get settled first. And you can bet it will.

Dylan died at The Scuba Ranch Lake, near Terrell, Texas, last August. The defendants are NAUI and PADI, together with ScubaToys Enterprises (who operated the course), The Scuba Ranch (A PADI facility), where the course was taught, ScubaToys owner, Joe Johnson, NAUI dive instructor William Armstrong, divemaster Jonathon Roussel, and dive center staff member and NAUI Course Director Gregory Knauer. The suit alleges they are all linked to the fatal accident.

Dylan's instructor, Armstrong, is alleged to have been sleep-deprived, having worked 24 hours straight before the incident. Divemaster Jonathan Roussel, who was said to have promised not to take his eyes off Dylan while she was underwater, days later claimed to have lost his own dive computer when asked to produce it.

The lawsuit alleges that Dylan had been buddied with another 12-year-old trainee, and that Armstrong had failed to carry out a check on the weights she wore and that "Dylan had not met the minimum requirements [10 hours] for her to move past Confined Water Training."

Without a computer, watch, or depth gauge, "Dylan would not have known how to descend or ascend safely if she became separated from her instructor underwater."

Emergency services were not called nor a search initiated until 15 minutes after the girl was known to be missing, although, based on the remaining contents of her recovered tank, the lawsuit claims she could have survived for some time, despite being alone and in poor visibility.

Questions were later raised about the handling of evidence, including the failure to collect or analyze dive computer data, compounded by the Kaufman County Sheriff's Office reportedly informing the family that the investigation had been closed within hours of the incident.

A historic video of Joe Johnson, the owner of the dive property, later surfaced, revealing his making flippant remarks about diver deaths. His dive center, ScubaToys, has closed permanently. Instructor Armstrong resigned from his post as a Deputy Sheriff, and also from a job elsewhere as a night watchman.

Lyons-Simmons, the family's legal firm, alleges in the suit that "This child's death resulted from systemic safety failures that have plagued the scuba diving industry for years -- failures that Defendants were aware of before this tragedy, yet turned a blind eye to. NAUI and PADI have systemic shortcomings in their scuba training of minors."

The court documents allege, "NAUI does not require its instructors to automatically reduce instructor to student ratios when students under the age of 16 are present in a training class for its Open Water certification" and "Despite attempts to shield itself from liability through internal documents, PADI takes a highly active role in the management and operations of the individual dive shops and resorts within the Retail and Resort Association" and that "PADI failed to apply good judgment in assessing the safety of The Scuba Ranch as a suitable dive training facility.

"PADI has been subjectively aware that students under the age of 16 are not suitable candidates for Open Water Diver certification utilizing a ratio of eight students to one instructor, yet PADI consciously fails to require its members or RRA members to automatically reduce instructor to student ratios when students under the age of 16 are present in a training class for its Open Water certification.

"The death of 12-year-old Dylan Harrison is incomprehensibly tragic, a tragedy compounded by the fact that it was utterly senseless and entirely preventable."

The suit claims that the tragedy appears to have been caused by a casual attitude to safety by those involved and a litany of errors that should never have happened. (In the past, critics of the diver training system for minors have argued that accountability can be blurred if and when incidents occur, with agencies, instructors, and operators each bearing partial responsibility.)

Several other issues are raised in the lawsuit, including conducting a certification class in water with five-foot visibility, contrary to NAUI's regulations.

David Concannon, a veteran dive industry lawyer who was asked to assist the family after the authorities closed their investigation, was asked about the suit, and he told Undercurrent, "The scuba industry has been talking about the appropriate ratio for teaching minors since the death of 12-year-old David Tuvell in 2011. Unfortunately, there is no consensus, and now a jury and the industry's insurers will be asked to decide. As a result of this tragedy, one of the two insurance companies covering diving in North America has already changed the language of its professional liability policy to reduce the acceptable instructor-to-student ratio for participants under the age of 16 to one-to-one."

A preliminary hearing date has yet to be set. Although some changes in certification procedures may develop, don't expect much and don't expect evocative court proceedings. This case will settle long before. The main thing is the family will get some justice, but nothing that will ever make up for their tragic and entirely unnecessary loss.

You may read the entire lawsuit on our website by clicking here.

You may read our initial article about the death of Dylan Harrison by clicking here.

John Bantin and Ben Davison

Breaking News: Former instructor William Armstrong was arrested on February 6 and charged with injury to a child following the drowning death of Dylan Harrison.