Mother of President Coolidge diving fatality wants action taken

Vicky Geiger, the mother of Dr.

Lailade Osunsade, an American resident in New Zealand, who died while diving on the SS President Coolidge, on Santo May 2, 2013, has written to Congressman John Sarbanes of Maryland, United States of America seeking assistance with holding responsible authorities accountable for her death. The letter is part of activities she has been doing following her daughter’s death to get some form of litigation for the death of her daughter, including writing to Transparency International Vanuatu seeking their assistance.

In her letter to Congressman Carbines, Ms. Geiger has asked his assistance to get US Congressional Recognition for New Zealand Ministry of Justice, New Zealand Chief Coroner Shortland and Michael McFadyen, Australian Investigative Diver for going beyond the call of duty in their diligence and detailed investigation in Dr. Osunsade’s death.

She also expressed her heartfelt gratitude to the compelling articles of Bridgette Tunnicliffe NZRADIO and the writer of this article about Laila’s preventable diving death.

“US government is very generous in supporting Vanuatu’s cultural, educational and other humanitarian aids. Laila’s diving death is not all about Laila. Laila like any other girls who attended Montgomery County Public School, a medical student in UK and completed medical school at Royal School of Surgeons Dublin is a Pride and Joy of all Marylanders. Laila comes from a very humble hardworking family in Silver Spring MD. Laila is a friend, daughter, parishioner, aunt, colleague, niece, wife and a tourist in Vanuatu. In her short life, she contributed to cancer research. Silence no more to Vanuatu Tourism, Trade Commerce and Industry total disregard to safety standard to underwater commerce including scuba sport,” she wrote.

Albert Taufa, Senior Legal Officer, on behalf of TIV-ALAC said in his letter to Ms. Geiger that her appeal had been referred to its Advocacy & Legal Advice Centre (ALAC) for investigation and the determinations are that dive companies operating in Vanuatu are subject to international regulations in terms of safety standards, but there are at present no specific regulations governing this sport in Vanuatu. As such, the enforcement of such regulations cannot be implemented by the Courts because it has never been enacted as legislation.

“ALAC Vanuatu will not make any comments with regard to the Police Report and Coroners Report because it has not assessed such reports. However, one option would be to sue the concerned diving company on the grounds of negligence for the cause of death depending on the circumstances surrounding the death which ALAC Vanuatu is not aware of and as such is unable to give a comprehensive legal advice at this point.”

And they have advised she contact a private law firm or the Public Solicitor to seek advice as to legal remedy in this matter.

Because of its impact on tourism in Vanuatu and to prevent future diving accidents in the country, George Borugu, the Director, Department of Tourism, confirmed that the department has established a tourism operators minimum standard and for diving the minimum standard required for everyone who owns and operates a diving business is to be certified and registered by an international body such as PADI and a few other international organizations that certify divers.

“The minimum requirement to be certified by one of the international bodies is because we do not have the expertise locally to do this certification such businesses we have adopted this international requirements so that all divers registered in Vanuatu are certified under these international bodies.

If a person owns and operates a diving business and they go to the Department of Tourism and before you get your license, they ensure you comply with the minimum standard before you are issued your business license.”

All these businesses also join and become members of the Vanuatu Scuba Operators Association (VSOA) and also become members of the Vanuatu Tour Operators Association.

The President of VSOA Mike Crawford, owner of Big Blue (Vanuatu), points out that Vanuatu has only had one tourist diving fatality in the last 25 years as he can remember.

“This is a very, very good record and that’s something that Vanuatu should be proud of because in other countries they have many diving fatalities every year. And to say the diving operations in Vanuatu aren’t safe is completely wrong.”

He said he told the police during the inquiry that Vanuatu were above average as far as dive operations go and that the people here do a very good job and the majority of the staff are absolutely excellent.

“There’s nothing wrong with the diving fraternity as such. We all belong to an organization called the Vanuatu Scuba Operators Association and they have their own constitution with trainings based on requirements by PADI, SSI. We have a special one for the Coolidge and basic one for the rest of us. And we follow that fairly well.”

He confirmed there’s only one organization that is not a member, Aqua Marine. And for them as an association, they have to make them a member. And this is something that has been ongoing for a little while for them to belong to a training organization and they have a new company called RAID, which is now going to train Aqua Marine and recertify their dive guides.

“They cannot become a member of the association until all the members are happy that they have done this, which will take a few months and once that’s done then we look at the whole thing again because we want them to be one of us but we want them to be the same as everyone else,” Crawford explained.

Hopefully within the next two three months, Aqua Marine will have had their necessary training and been brought up to standards so that all the members will agree and they can then become a member as well.

“In regards to the accident, the coroner’s report basically covered the equipment used by the diving person. One of the things that happened, there was going to be a government enquiry here in Port Vila. I was asked to be in that enquiry initially, and then there was a change of government in Vanuatu as we all known and another change in government and nothing every got started and it got left behind.

All this equipment got left at the police station for 10 months before it went to NZ to be tested. So, if you put something in salt water and you leave it sitting in a room for 10 months it’s going to be in very bad condition when they come to test it,” the President of VSOA continued.

“They didn’t find any one piece of equipment caused the accident. Some things they did find, for example, the tank. There were some problems with the tank. However, the tank was still passed as ok. The equipment, the regulator, they made a problem with that but it was only two months old. It was brand new, and only because it was sitting in the police station that it accumulated all this corrosion that made that a problem.

“Then we come to something a little bit more serious. The diver herself was not a good diver. They had already found that out. She was very uncomfortable in the water. She should not have been diving at that particular depth or inside the wreck. She had too much weight. That is entirely the diver master’s fault.

“However, the too much weight is a little bit debatable because we don’t know, she may be a very big girl and maybe she did require a lot of weight. When they tested it they got a police navy diver who was a very fit person, and very experienced and he only required a small amount of weight.

“The worst factor was the fact that she had fins that were too big for her they actually fell off during the dive. And that is the dive master’s fault. Now, the dive master already knew the dive began she was not a good diver. Other people in the group refused to dive with her. So, therefore, he knew she was not a good diver and to take special care. And in reality is he did not take special care, he lost her inside the wreck and that’s basically the end of the story,” Crawford stated.

“To be fair, Aqua Marine do need to improve their whole operation. But the real problem which the coroner did not look at was what did the dive master do? What was his job on that dive? That was something that was not covered in the coroner’s report. It’s probably more likely to be the cause of the accident than the equipment.

“So, although the coroner did say it was not good, some dirt inside it, it was ok. She was overweight and maybe that’s the dive master’s fault she had fins too big, that is the dive master’s fault. The regulator was found to have corrosion, but that has been in the police station for 10 months.

“I think overall, in any other country, the dive master would have been charged and taken to court, but this country we have different rules, different laws, we are not in that stage of litigation like they are in America, New Zealand or Australia. So, maybe the dive master was lucky he was not called to account for himself, but that’s where the problem lies”.

VSOA President Mike Crawford concluded saying overall diving in Vanuatu has always been of a high standard.

“And that it’s very unfortunate and I can understand the mother, she is very upset and she wants to see action taken. I can understand that. But from my point of view and from most divers that I’ve dived with we are very good here. I’ve been to places in Bali, in Fiji, in Solomon Islands, in Samoa that don’t even come anywhere near as good a standards we have here, and very surprising that they are trying to degrade our tourism.”