On
a cold February night, in an unremarkable London pub an argument broke out. The
argument was long, heated and at times rather abusive. One bloke, called Bob,
even walked out saying he just couldn’t reason with the others. He hasn’t been
seen since. So what was the argument about? Well it was about the sad death of
Rob Stewart, he of Sharkwater fame. There were seemingly so many questions
surrounding the events leading up to his death.
Why
did Rob undertake a third deep dive of the day using a rebreather when he was
relatively inexperienced with rebreathers and had never made such deep dives
before? Why was the instructor the first out of the water rather than Rob (the
student)? How did no one notice when Rob sunk below the surface again and
“disappeared”? Why did it take so long to find his body considering it was
eventually found 300 metres from his last known location? The questions just
kept on coming and because no one had any answers everyone was forced to
speculate and speculation leads to people called Bob making rude gestures and
walking out.
Now
it seems that those questions and many more might just get answered. The family
of Rob Stewart have filed a lawsuit against Horizon Diving Adventures of Key
Largo, Florida, Add Helium of Fort Lauderdale, Florida and a certain Peter
Sotis who ran Add Helium. You may be familiar with the story of Rob Stewart’s
final dive but in case you are not here’s a quick recap. Just before Christmas 2016
Rob Stewart posted on Facebook that he was “looking for a rebreather ninja
mid-January in Florida for some 300ft dives to film for Sharkwater 2… Let me
know if you’re interested and super-capable”
There
is something troubling about the word “ninja” to us. Perhaps nowadays “ninja”
means some technical wizard or superhuman that work wonders but to us a ninja
is a shadowy Japanese assassin who didn’t like attacking people head on but
instead preferred to attack when they were most vulnerable – when they were
eating, asleep or on the toilet.
Whatever Rob Stewart meant by the term, the
ninja he got was Peter Sotis, owner and training director of Add Helium. Rob
must already have known Peter, as he trained on Rebreathers at Add Helium back
in August that year. Add Helium claims to have educated “more rebreather
divers, instructors and instructor trainers than anyone else… Period” Peter
Sotis allegedly regards himself as a leader in rebreather diving if not the
leader and says his team “consistently pushes the limits as they explore deep
walls in excess of 600ft” It could be argued that Peter was definitely pushing
the limits on the day in question. Peter and Rob had already made two
(hopefully planned) dives on the Queen Nassau, that lies in over 200ft of water
off the Florida Keys. where Rob hoped to film the endangered Sawfish. The third
dive however, seems to have been unplanned as it is alleged that the only reason
that dive was undertaken was to re-cover a $15 grappling hook which had been
placed on the wreck and was attached to a surface buoy that marked the location
of the dive site. It was on this dive that Peter and Rob encountered
difficulties. Accounts say that on surfacing Peter Sotis (the instructor
remember) was first to board the boat, promptly collapsed and required urgent
oxygen therapy. It was whilst everyone was attending to the instructor that the
student, Rob Stewart, slipped back beneath the waves and sank to his untimely
death. Three days later, following a search that encompassed miles upon miles
of ocean, Rob’s body was finally located a mere 300 metres from where he had
originally surfaced.
At the time, very few people knew much about Peter Sotis
and it is possible that if Rob had known a little more about his “rebreather
ninja” he wouldn’t have been that eager to push the limits with him. For Peter
Sotis seems to have a rather murky past. He is, for one thing, a convicted
armed robber and is under investigation by the U.S. Dept of Commerce for
selling Chinese made Scuba Cylinders with faked CE certificates. Perhaps worse
still, Peter Sotis is under investigation by the FBI and U.S. Dept for Homeland
Security for allegedly selling military spec rebreathers to Libyan Militants
despite being advised not to by U.S. Authorities. There is conflicting
information regarding whether the equipment in question really was military
grade or whether the Libyans were terrorists but Peter’s own business partner,
Shawn Robotka, also filed a lawsuit against him alleging that the sale was
illegal, contravened U.S. arms embargoes and that Peter Sotis went ahead with
the sale despite knowing that it was in fact, unlawful and that the buyer was a
known militant in the region. Reports also say that a disgruntled shareholder
has pulled his money from the Add Helium bank account forcing the company's
closure. Peter Sotis and several other directors of Add Helium have now filed
for bankruptcy. Which suggests that there will be little left to pay the
Stewart Family should the court find in their favour. But then that is beside
the point. As the Stewart family have made clear, this is not about compensation,
it’s about safety.
Rob
Stewart's death was clearly preventable and by being so it is all the more
tragic. But perhaps there is a silver lining in the cloud. Rob Stewart wasn’t
just another tourist that nobody had ever heard of. He was an accomplished
SCUBA diver, photographer and world famous documentary maker. And it is that fame that will
bring the ensuing court case to attention of the world.
There are going to be a lot of people squirming
uncomfortably in chairs soon and not all of those will be facing the lawyers in
court. As the case unfolds a great many questions are going to be asked about
the diving industry itself; about rebreathers, their use by sport divers and
the whole training, licensing and regulation of those who claim to be diving
instructors or even diving ninjas. For
years we have been saying that there are far too many idiots in the diving
industry, far too many charlatans and far too many self-appointed experts who
want to push the limits. And for years people like Peter Sotis keep proving our
point and yet the idiots still prosper and the deaths continue to rack up. Rob
Stewart, one of the worlds greatest advocates for sharks, has become one more
name on the diving worlds long list of needless deaths. How much longer will it be before the diving industry realises it has a bloody big problem?
Links:
Lawsuit story; watch the videos to see the Stewart family Lawyer outline the case
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