Dylan Harrison, Rockwall, Texas 12 year old girl dies during scuba certification course over the summer amid ongoing concerns of those who led the dive, ‘Scuba Toys’ including issues of transparency, accountability and mysterious lost dive computer data at the ‘Scuba Ranch.’
A 12 year old Texas girl’s scuba diving death over the summer continues to remain a point of contention as investigators have yet to say what led to the child’s ‘preventable’ death amid renewed questions of accountability and transparency of those who led the dive.
Dylan Harrison of Rockwall traveled to Terrell to get her scuba certification course. Her family had signed the 12-year-old so she could dive with her father and grandfather.
Scuba Certification course leads to 12 year old girl’s preventable death
On August 16, Dylan was participating at an open-water training session at the ‘Scuba Ranch’ at a Carollton area lake when she became separated from her class underwater. Experts say visibility that day was poor, only about the length of an arm in front of a diver.
The class was run by Scuba Toys, a dive company that rents space at the lake. The dive was meant to be Dylan’s final step before earning her certification.
According to guidelines set by training certification agencies, eight students to an instructor is the max allowed. If there is an additional dive master, there can be a max of 10 students.
Dylan’s class was within that range with eight students, an instructor and a dive master.
During the dive, the group, which included Dylan being paired up with another 12 year old, initially descended to a training platform about 16 feet below the surface. After miscommunication, the instructor brought the group back up before descending again. When the group returned to the platform, Dylan was missing.
Diving tragedy raises more questions than answers
Her body was found by another dive team training nearby. She was located about 42 feet underwater, away from the platform and deeper than where the class had been diving.
The tragedy has raised concerns how diving emergencies are handled along with the collection of dive data. Dive computers – which were worn by Dylan, her instructor and the dive master – can show how deep each diver went and how long they were underwater and are often used to investigate diving accidents according to the Rockwall County Herald Banner.
Ross Neil, a scuba instructor trainer from Florida, told Fox4 News that while the class met certification limits, pairing two inexperienced 12-year-olds together in low-visibility conditions created unnecessary risk.
Dylan’s parents, Mitchell and Heather Harrison, believed their daughter would be paired with a dive master for supervision. Instead, she was paired with a 12 year old boy. Neil called the tragedy ‘preventable,’ adding that no student should ever be ‘lost’ during instruction.
Mysterious lost dive computer data
The family’s attorney, David Concannon, says key evidence, including dive computer data, was lost during the investigation, raising further questions about accountability and oversight.
Offered the attorney via DiveMagazine: ‘This is the first case I’ve had, out of almost 300, where answers have not been forthcoming, and evidence was not gathered at the scene or shortly thereafter, by the people who know what to do,’ said Concannon.
‘It’s unusual that so many people who know what to do were present, and things that weren’t done. And they’re not being done.
‘[The dive computer] is a black box that’ll show you a tremendous amount of information about what happened to Dylan,’
‘That evidence has been in the presence of law enforcement since the moment she was recovered, but it hasn’t been analysed.’
Commented a dive investigator via divernet: ‘In the 200+ underwater fatality investigations I have been involved with since downloadable dive-computers first came on the market, I have never seen a dive-computer with exculpatory evidence stored on it become lost.’
Also of disconcert was a delayed response to the emergency with up to seven minutes passing before an unconscious Dylan being recovered. Seven minutes is generally considered the upper limit of potential revival of a drowned victim.
The dive instructor, identified as William Armstrong, who is also a serving deputy sheriff with the local with the Collin County Sheriff’s office was found ‘bone-dry,’ inferring he had been out of the water for some time.
Officials from both The Scuba Ranch and Scuba Toys, which ran the class, have declined to comment due to the ongoing ‘criminal’ investigation.
‘It absolutely breaks my heart, because everything that we train for, everything that we teach for, is to mitigate problems,’ Neil said.
