Abandoned diver wins big negligence case against dive company

A dive master marked Daniel Cardock as being present on the roster two times on a Southern California group scuba dive excursion.

There was just one problem. He was already missing.

Cardock was recently awarded $1.68 million after a jury found Sundiver Charters and Ocean Adventures Dive Co. responsible for abandoning him during the chartered dive six years ago.

He and 20 other divers were on the excursion 12 miles offshore from Long Beach. Having to surface because of an ear problem, Cardock was unable to swim back to the vessel, which was 400 feet away. Despite blowing on his safety whistle and waving frantically, he was not seen and then left behind. Nevertheless, the dive master marked him as being present, not just at that location, but at a second dive in a different location.

Cardock drifted for five hours until being rescued by a Boy Scout expedition on a tall ship. In his negligence suit he claimed to have suffered from post traumatic stress disorder and to have developed skin cancer from the prolonged sun exposure when he was adrift.

The jury sided with him and initially awarded $2 million. The amount was reduced to $1.68 million after it was ruled that he shared some of the responsibility for not surfacing closer to the dive boat.

As a result of the incident, the diving industry has changed its standards to mandate redundancy and visual verification in accounting for divers.

(Information from a Los Angeles Times report was used in this story).

Source: Washington Injury Attorney Blog.com