Soldier died in diving lesson after instructors skipped training stage

Soldier, 27, died in army diving lesson after instructors skipped a stage of five-week training course, inquest hears

• Lance Corporal George Partridge was four weeks into the course when he died 
• The 27-year-old was carrying out drills at the National Diving and Activity Centre
• An inquest into his death heard that an army diving lesson had been skipped  

A soldier died during an army diving lesson after a stage of his five week training course was skipped, an inquest has heard. 

Lance Corporal George Partridge, 27, was four weeks into the course when he died as he carried out drills at the National Diving and Activity Centre near the Welsh border. 

The centre, located in Tidenham, Gloucestershire, has sunken planes, buses and armoured vehicles on the bed of the quarry where divers can carry out practice operations. 

On March 26 2018,  the soldier and 11 other trainees had been scheduled to perform Dive 19 in their course which involved going down to a depth of 21-23 metres, the inquest, which is being held in Gloucester, heard. 

Lance Corporal George Partridge, 27, was four weeks into the course when he died as he carried out drills at the National Diving and Activity Centre near the Welsh border

But a decision was made to skip the exercise and go straight on to Dive 20 of the programme which involved descending to a submerged helicopter at a depth of 26-27 metres. 

L/Corporal Partridge, who was described as the top student in his group, went down at 11am with ‘buddy’ Stephen Hart, but minutes later got into trouble. 

When he was brought to the surface, his face mask was hanging off and his two air tanks were found to be empty,  the inquest heard. 

The dive supervisor, Staff Sergeant Justin Dolly told the inquest jury Dive 19 was skipped because the trainees had done two deeper dives the previous week, one to 30metres in the Solent, off Southampton. 

He agreed with the assistant Gloucestershire Coroner Roland Wooderson, who suggested the reason for the change was ‘to do something more interesting and recce the helicopter.’ 

‘We decided to dive to the wreck of the helicopter which was more interesting than what they had seen in the previous four weeks of training,’ Sgt Dolly said. 

At the start of the inquest, assistant Gloucestershire Coroner Roland Wooderson told the jury: ‘He was taking part in an army diving training course. George was with other colleagues at the National Diving Centre in Chepstow on March 26th 2018.

‘He took part in a dive but towards the end he failed to respond to communications. A stand-by diver was deployed to rescue George and he found him and removed him from the water.

‘Medical assistance was sought but very sadly George was declared to have passed away.

‘Since his death various investigations and inquiries have taken place and you will hear more about those in due course.’

The inquest began with the jury being shown a mannequin wearing the same diving jacket and equipment L/C Partridge was using including the main air cylinder, the bac-up cylinder, inflation tank, gauges and mask. 

Sgt Dolly told the jury that L/C Partridge had been ‘doing really well’. 

‘One of the instructors rated him the top student on the course,’ he said.

‘I thought he was very fit and robust and more switched on than other members of the course.’

Lance Corporal George Partridge was described as the top student in his group

He said that divers had an audio communication system but that it was unreliable and dive attendants on the surface would resort to pulling on a lifeline, using Morse-code like signals. 

He said he saw two sets of bubbles coming to the surface from L/C Partridge and his ‘buddy’ Stephen Hart and that they appeared to be working together to untangle a line. 

After ten minutes, they attempted to use the voice communications system to tell the men to surface but got no response. 

One of the attendants thought L/C Partridge had sent a signal on the lifeline but did not feel it was sufficient to be sure that he was communicating. 

 Neither diver responded to a lifeline signal to call them back but then Hart signalled that he was ascending. 

‘I immediately sent down the standby diver, Corporal Michael Watson,’ Sgt Dolly said. 

He said when George surfaced he could see he was not wearing his face mask. 

‘It was dangling from his suit,’ he said. ‘When he surfaced I believe he was unconscious. This was 11.17am.

‘We got him out of the water and called 999 immediately. I also pressed the panic button on the jetty. George’s air cylinders were investigated and both were empty.’

Eliot Woolf QC, representing the family, asked Sgt Dolly if he felt the amount of time the trainees had been diving in excess of 10 metres during the course was sufficient for them to dive safely to the helicopter.

‘All the boxes had been ticked in the run-up to this dive,’ he said.

But when questioned again, he added: ‘In my opinion they (the students) could have done with more medium range depth training.’

He added that he had not been taught about air endurance tables, which show how long a diver can safely stay down at depth, at the time of the incident. 

He said the use of air endurance tables had been introduced by the army later in 2018. 

The centre, located in Tidenham, Gloucestershire, has sunken planes, buses and armoured vehicles on the bed of the quarry where divers can carry out practice operations.

When asked if he had been authorised by his senior officer to skip Dive 19 and go straight to 20, Sgt Dolly said: ‘I think I spoke to him that day but he said afterwards that he didn’t speak to me.’

Mr Woolf asked Sgt Dolly: ‘The conclusion reached about replacing Dive 19 with Dive 20 removed a main stepping stone in the students learning, didn’t it? It was Good Friday that week – were you under pressure to remove a day of the exercises so everyone could end the course a day early?’

Sgt Dolly insisted the course would have continued on the Bank Holiday, so that was not a factor in the decision. 

He accepted that if air endurance tables had been in use at the time that he would have been able to reduce the duration of Dive 20 to prevent problems.  

The inquest continues.

Source: Read Full Article