Australian officials are investigating a dive boat company that accidentally left behind a US tourist snorkelling at the Great Barrier Reef, forcing the panicked man to swim to another boat for help.
A spokesman for the company denied Ian Cole was ever in danger. But the incident drew immediate comparisons to the infamous case of Americans Tom and Eileen Lonergan, who died in 1998 after their tour boat left while they were scuba diving on the reef. Officials believe they drowned or were eaten by sharks.
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Cole, 28, of Michigan said he was snorkelling on Saturday when he lifted his head out of the water and realised his tour boat, the Passions of Paradise, was nowhere in sight.
?The adrenaline hit in and I had a moment of panic, which was the worst thing I could have done at that point,? Cole told the Cairns Post.
?I was able to calm myself just a little bit because there was another boat still out there and I made my way to that vessel.
?Lucky it was there because otherwise I may have drowned. I did not handle the situation well and I was tired.?
A spokeswoman for the state work safety agency, Workplace Health and Safety Queensland, said the department was investigating but declined to comment further.
Col McKenzie of the Association of Marine Park Tourism Operators said Cole was never in danger of drowning, since other boats were nearby.
A crew member who conducted a headcount aboard the boat broke the rules by failing to get Cole?s signature to confirm he was present before it left, McKenzie said. That staff member was fired.
Safety standards for recreational dive boat operators on the reef were strengthened after the Lonergans were abandoned in 1998. Their case inspired the 2003 movie Open Water.
But other reef tourists have found themselves adrift since then. In 2008, a British diver and his American girlfriend became lost when they resurfaced from a dive and found themselves far away from their boat. A helicopter rescued them after they had spent 19 hours in the water.
From Associated Press, June 29, 2011.
Photo caption: Tourists snorkel at the Great Barrier Reef near Cairns off Australia?s north-east coast. Photograph: Brian Cassey/AP
Source: http://morrisonworldnews.com/?p=52315
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