Seaman's Manslaughter - Fascinating Indeed

[JimInPB]

...
I've been scuba diving for over 20 years and I can tell you that without weights, a human body simply does not sink when it goes overboard....

That depends on how much fat a person has & how much air is in the lungs. If I exhale, while wearing just swim trunks, I sink. I don't need any weights. I don't need to move at all. I just sink.

That aside, two things get my attention. First, the guy is said to have had psycho drugs with him. That could explain a lot. Maybe he was off his meds or could not keep his meds down due to the seasickness. On the other hand, what actually happened is being described by the survivors. If they had a common reason to fabricate an inaccurate story, then nobody will ever know what really happened.

I am fussy about who I go offshore with. This story adds to my reasons for that.

 

[ambler]

As mentioned earlier, scopolomine can cause delirium and hallucinations. There are no details about his heart disease or medications he may have been prescribed for heart disease. The ankle/foot swelling suggests congestive heart failure which could impair brain perfusion and cause delirium. A myocardial infarction could do the same. Either could have been aggravated by the nausea preventing him from taking his heart medications. Dehydration is another factor. There are plenty of explanations for the altered mental status and combative behavior.

I suppose the legal case hinges on the response of the captain and crew to the situation. It certainly highlights the importance of assessing the medical history of all abord.

 

[Jackdaw]

Even if the lost of the MOB was apparent, the Captain made a possible bad assumption and continued his voyage.
Jim...

This happens all the time.. a boat carries on after a non-recovered MOB. Hell it's happened in the Volvo race several times.

 

[Joe Blizzard]

By the way, the remark, “You can’t just turn a boat like that around in the middle of the ocean,” was not made by Smith or the two other crew on the boat; it was made by another captain who knows Smith, Tom Larson. Maybe he meant that it's not as easy as landsmen might believe to simply go back and retrieve a MOB.

News reporter thought process: “Okay, this guy said you can't just turn around, then he started babbling a bunch of gibberish about sheets and heaves. I'll quote the first line.”

 

[sailndays]

It appears that the dead guys Daddy is being Vindictive and using his friendship in his home Port to punish the CAPT. Seems malicious prosecution.

 

[Tally Ho]

Ah...
They claimed they actually saw him sink immediately (which is definitely untrue), which would make one question what other parts of their story is untrue..

Maybe the guy was holding on to a cannon ball (or other weight) to make himself sink.

I don’t think we know all of what happened on board, and our speculation is just that.

Greg

 

[Will Gilmore]

I don’t think we know all of what happened on board, and our speculation is just that.

Yes, of course.
It's also an exploration into law and social interactions and ethics aboard.

-Will (Dragonfly)

 

[BigEasy]

Bad situation for sure. Perhaps the Captain could have stayed at the MOB site to attempt a recovery and should have notified USCG immediately via SSB radio for further directions. Unfortunately, we don't know all of the facts before and after the incident. If the guy was psychotic and wanted to commit suicide, there wasn't much that anyone could do about it. If the captain would have restrained the passenger and he expired because of dehydration, aspirating vomit, etc., the captain would have contributed to or caused death and would likely be found guilty of manslaughter. A good lawyer should be able to get the captain exonerated.

 

[Rick Webb]

I think I know the answer.


I was looking at the dates, he had a hold of Hillary's email server and that's what weighted him down.

 

[MisterR6]

Some of us really do sink like a rock! I am one of them! I have a jetski racing vest ( not C.G. approved) that will NOT float me unless I have a full breath of air. As a demo for our daughter I exhaled ... sank to the 12ft. end of our pool and walked out to the shallow end. She wears her vest anytime on any boat and understands why. One of her friends from school was allowed to take her vest off to nap in the floor of her dads bassboat, which struck an underwater log and tossed him overboard, she stood up and fell in. Her dad said she never came to the surface! Two days later we found her body in a cove near our house... Addy wears hers anytime on or in water more than waist deep. Terrible way to learn that lesson. My grandfather always said that lessons learned the hard way are the ones you learn the best.

 

[Gene Neill]

I've been scuba diving for over 20 years and I can tell you that without weights, a human body simply does not sink when it goes overboard. As a matter of fact, you have to SWIM down to stay down, especially if you are overweight as this man was because fat floats. That is a *huge* glaring issue with their story and certainly gives pause to more closely examine other parts of it.

Without deliberately filling my lungs completely full of air, I sink like a rock. I'm five nine/193. The nutjob was six feet, 250.

If you think that's fat, I suggest you walk up to the next 6'/250 guy you see, and tell him so.

 

[NotCook]

News reporter thought process: “Okay, this guy said you can't just turn around, then he started babbling a bunch of gibberish about sheets and heaves. I'll quote the first line.”

Then, there was the expert explanation, “The Cimarron is a yawl, the term for a two-masted sailing vessel whose mainmast is taller than the mizzen mast.” Huh?

Here’s what I thought rather suspect: “When he wasn’t lying down, Pontious was pacing back and forth on the deck, which is about the size of an average living room but elongated.” You’re “300 miles offshore” and a guy is “pacing back and forth on the deck”? Unlikely. It isn’t like a deck is unobstructed, and is usually rolling. The skipper was letting a “wobbly” crew member out on deck untethered? Not like any offshore passages I’ve ever made...

I do have to agree with comments about this skipper being rather callous, especially for an experienced charter captain. Didn’t sound like he performed even a single step in an MOB procedure, except when he threw the life ring overboard... the next day. Don’t think I would be sailing with this guy. Especially if I was psychotic.

 

[Will Gilmore]

There's a story I heard about a charter boat captain at the marina I grew up at. In Clearwater, the deckhands can be a little "questionable" when it comes to personality types. So too the captains. One captain was friends with Haystack Calhoun

A number of pro wrestlers liked to fish and Haystack joined is friend as an extra hand on a chart. The captain also had a new deckhand and at one point, the mate got so fed up with the captain telling him what to do that he sat down on the deck and refused to work another minute. They were several miles off shore and the captain said, "If your not working, you're paying to ride on my boat."
The kid refused and the captain threw the guy overboard. He went up to thew fly bridge and fired up the engines and told Haystack to get the anchor.
Mr. Calhoun said, "You just gonna leave him there?" Pointing to the mate swimming next to the boat.
The captain said, "He can swim back."
Calhoun then pointed to the horrified customers watching the whole exchange and said, "If you're gonna do that, then you got to throw these guys over too, 'cause they is witnesses."
The captain saw his predicament and fished out the angree deckhand.

Don't know how true the story is, but it is consistent with some of the personalities I knew on the waterfront.

-Will (Dragonfly)

 

[Kings Gambit]

Without deliberately filling my lungs completely full of air, I sink like a rock. I'm five nine/193. The nutjob was six feet, 250.

If you think that's fat, I suggest you walk up to the next 6'/250 guy you see, and tell him so.

Yes. The average specific gravity of the human body touches 1.03, so some people would be higher than that. Seawater near 80 deg F is about 1.023; so a person could well sink in that water, especially if carrying extra weight. So, if we did not sink, why carry and wear flotation?

 

[Scott T-Bird]

Yes. The average specific gravity of the human body touches 1.03, so some people would be higher than that. Seawater near 80 deg F is about 1.023; so a person could well sink in that water, especially if carrying extra weight. So, if we did not sink, why carry and wear flotation?

Most of us probably don't wear it We carry it because "The Man" says we must. Most of us could probably stay breathing for hours without flotation. After a while, we wouldn't be able to keep our face out of the water due to exhaustion.

I know that when I fill my lungs, I can float face-up without moving in a freshwater pool. When I exhale, I have to flutter my arms just barely to keep afloat enough to draw my next breath without slipping under. Of course, waves makes the whole process just a bit more complicated. If I jumped in, I think that I might not come to the surface fast enough to draw another breath, unless I kicked or swam. If I jumped in and exhaled and didn't swim for the surface, I'd stay sunk until I drowned. Maybe I'd come to the surface eventually, after drowning, it's hard to know.

I think the captain was dead wrong for not attempting to recover the MOB. How can a person just sail on? Of course, I wasn't there and didn't know the dynamics. I'm sure captain and crew had some issues, but to leave a person in the water without even looking for a body? Come on! In my mind, it is no different than accidentally hitting a pedestrian with your car and not stopping. You may not have fault for hitting the pedestrian, but, by law, and morally, you can't just drive on.

I can see no excuse for not searching.

 

[JetLaggedChef]

Yes. The average specific gravity of the human body touches 1.03, so some people would be higher than that. Seawater near 80 deg F is about 1.023; so a person could well sink in that water, especially if carrying extra weight. So, if we did not sink, why carry and wear flotation?

1.03 human body (with no air) vs 1.023 sea water. You can never get all the air out of your lungs, so by your numbers, you would be just buoyant and just barely float at the top of the water.

We float right under the water until our lungs are full of water, which takes time. We wear life jackets for two reasons: (1) So we can actually keep our head above the water without effort or if knocked unconscious and (2) to more easily retrieve the corps.

It's nearly impossible to get all the air out of your lungs and someone who supposedly just jumped off a boat in a psychotic rage is unlikely to have thought to try and push all the air out of his lungs on purpose. Even a person with a sharper frame of mind trying to drown themselves probably wouldn't think to do that.

I appreciate that some of you think you sink with air in your lungs, but 20 years of frequent scuba diving (and free diving) will teach one otherwise. If you dive into the water without weights, you'll come right back to the surface. It is literally an effort to get more than two feet below the surface and stay there for more than a second. Ask any knowledge diver who's forgotten to add their weights (or has gained weight and didn't add enough weights.)

Either way, we'll never know what really happened, but if the crew was telling the complete truth, there wouldn't be so many holes in their story. Like was mentioned earlier, never lie because it casts suspicion on your entire story. (Also note that since he's not being charged with murder, they don't need to prove him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.)

 

[Scott T-Bird]

I appreciate that some of you think you sink with air in your lungs, but 20 years of frequent scuba diving (and free diving) will teach one otherwise. If you dive into the water without weights, you'll come right back to the surface. It is literally an effort to get more than two feet below the surface and stay there for more than a second. Ask any knowledge diver who's forgotten to add their weights (or has gained weight and didn't add enough weights.)

I don't think that is entirely true. In my leaner days, when I had scuba gear on, I didn't need weights for neutral buoyancy. I was pretty much neutral, just on my own. Put on a wetsuit, and it is a different story. I've found that there is no need for additional flotation when wearing a wetsuit.
When I snorkel, I'm virtually neutral. It takes very little effort to swim along the surface when I'm exhaling. I can easily dive below the surface, even with my lungs filled. In clear water, I have no problem diving 20' to 30' down and floating with virtually neutral buoyancy for as long as I can hold my breath. I did this in Hawaii just a few years ago, even with the excess weight that I carry in my old age! It's funny though, I can't swim more than about 12' down in a lake when the light goes black. It has to be a psychological thing, and I can't get past it. I've set anchor in 20' of water and tried to pull my way down the rode. It never fails, I'll turn around and head for the surface before I reach bottom.

 

[Kings Gambit]

If you’re holding your breath, you probably would not sink immediately “out of sight.” If you’re exhaling you might sink initially deep enough to compress the lungs enough to force some residual air out; thus going enough even deeper, etc., and so on to the bottom. Most people heading into the water would instinctively hold the breath. But who knows with a hallucinating crew who just jumped over?

 

[kloudie1]

My personal experience in my pool is that when I rode a bicycle hard for 150 miles a week and weighed 210 at 6 feet tall, I could exhale about half (estimated) of my lung air and sink to the pool bottom (8feet) and just sit there for almost a minute.. Today, I can exhale as much as I can and the very top of my head stays on the surface.. at 255, I am much more buoyant (!) .. if I had clothes and shoes on, I'd probably sink .. Different folks have different structures.. A friend who took scuba with me many years ago could inhale as much as he could and would still sink.. That was back in the days before buoyancy compensators, and with no wet suit or weights.. I remember watching fellow boot camp sailors (in 1968) get dumped into the big pool and going straight to the bottom until the guy with the safety pole poked them.. They would quickly climb up that pole to the surface.. !! poor dudes from the dryer places; probably had never seen water that big or deep !

 

[dlochner]

As speculation grows about whether he would float or not, the victim's physical condition has not been considered.

I've spent a fair amount of time with actively psychotic adults and children, it can be a frightening situation for the uninitiated. When a person is in an agitated psychotic state, their heart rate is significantly elevated, blood pressure goes up, respirations become rapid and shallow. Jumping, falling or being thrown into the ocean will initiate a shock response, possibly causing heart failure or gasping for air. Either might well cause the victim to inhale a quantity of water sufficient to quickly drown him.

Witnessing an active aggressive psychotic episode can be trauma inducing to those witnesses, especially if they were the targets of the person's rage. This experience can easily delay quick appropriate responding and affect rational thought. Under more normal MOB circumstances a trained and experienced Captain should know how to immediately respond. However, no one is trained to deal with an agitated psychotic person onboard a small vessel 300 miles out to sea.

What we do know is the victim had a questionable history of depression or other mental illness, he was on a small boat with strangers, he became extremely seasick and likely disoriented as a result, he was given a prescription medication that can cause delirium and psychosis, he became agitated and violent, threatened the crew, and eventually went overboard.

If the captain made a mistake, it was not returning to port as the situation deteriorated. He had a real emergency and wasn't aware of how serious it was. It is difficult to fault him, as it is likely he did not have the experience or training to respond to a psychiatric emergency. Returning to port as quickly as possible and requesting assistance would have been the prudent course of action.

One lesson to learn here is, don't try to control an agitated possibly psychotic individual by threatening or intimidating. This will only escalate the situation and things will go south quickly.