All deadly scuba accidents are tragedies, particularly for family members and friends left to grieve and wonder why a needless death occurred. Statistics show that about 150 scuba-related deaths occur annually in the United States alone. Many of these tragic accidents spur survivors to file wrongful death lawsuits against a variety of parties involved in dives that went horribly wrong. Here, we’ll examine one such case in which the family of a woman who died during a 2011 dive accident in the Florida Keys filed suit against other involved parties.
The Accident
No one can say for certain exactly what happened on the day Judy Boone and fellow diver Kevin Moss suffered a deadly accident while hunting lobsters off Florida’s Plantation Key. The two were part of a group of friends working at a depth between 45 and 60 feet, along a ledge at Crocker Reef. The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office stated that both divers perished after apparently running out of air while struggling to get to the surface.
As a complicating factor, Kevin Moss, an accomplished diver, was suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Though he was not disabled, his stepmother stated that he had a noticeable tremor; even so, that didn’t stop him from skydiving, working out daily, and diving frequently. “He was very fit;” she told investigators, and “nothing stood in his way.” She is confident that his illness did not contribute to the accident.
Arilgon Pavan, owner of Deerfield Beach’s Dixie Divers, knew Moss well and states he was a very good diver who enjoyed the relaxing aspects of the sport.
A third diver, Mariann Radwan, told the Sheriff’s office that Kevin Moss was experiencing difficulty, and that she was helping him try to drop his weights and surface while sharing air with him. She said he pushed her away so she could surface, and when she looked back, Judy Boone was attempting to help Moss.
After Mariann Radwan returned to the boat, Captain Dennis Leith spent fifteen minutes searching for Boone and Moss. He then called the Coast Guard. The search for the divers was called off at 8:30 p.m. that evening, and at 9:30 a.m. the following day, their bodies were discovered.
The Lawsuit
In September of 2012, Judy Boone’s survivors filed a lawsuit naming the dive charter, the dive boat’s captain, and the estate of Kevin Moss. In the lawsuit, which was filed in Palm Beach County Circuit Court, Boone’s family claims that Dixie Divers and David Leith provided Moss with substandard equipment, then failed to monitor the divers properly. The suit also says that Kevin Moss was negligent in running out of air, and it states that he did not allow Boone to surface.
The court has yet to rule in this case, however divers are watching it closely for an outcome. Whether any parties named in the lawsuit are to blame for the accident remains to be seen, but one lesson we all can take away from this tragedy is the importance of calling for outside assistance as soon as divers go missing. Another is to always remember your training, no matter how many dives you have logged. As with most dive accidents, mistakes were probably made along the way; and wish as we might that those mistakes were reversible, they can never be undone.