Death of Tina Watson - Death of Tina Watson

Death of Tina Watson

Gabe Watson met Tina Thomas while they were students at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Tina took beginning diving lessons and earned her certification just before the two were married in October 2003. Watson, a purportedly qualified certified rescue diver, had planned a scuba trip in the Great Barrier Reef for their honeymoon.

During an excursion on the dive boat Spoilsport to the site of the SS Yongala, a passenger ship that sank in 1911, Tina lost consciousness and sank to the bottom, 100 feet (30 m) below the water's surface within two minutes of beginning the dive. Watson claimed the currents were stronger than they expected and that he responded to a signal from her to return to the dive rope where he noted a look of worry on her face before she accidentally knocked his mask loose. When he recovered his sight, she was sinking too quickly for him to retrieve her and he surfaced to get help. He also stated that an ear problem prevented him from diving deeper to help her and that there was nothing in his training as a rescue diver "about how to get somebody" in trouble to the surface.

Other divers were nearby at the time, including Dr. Stanley Stutz, who saw Watson engaged in an underwater "bear hug" with his "flailing" wife, after which he headed for the surface while his wife fell to the ocean floor. A fellow diver, Gary Stempler, photographed Watson by chance while taking a picture of his own wife that showed Tina in the background. The photo revealed Tina lying on the ocean floor, something that did not come to light until a couple of weeks later when the pictures were developed. Watson climbed aboard the Spoilsport and alerted dive instructor Wade Singleton, who brought Tina to the surface. She was taken aboard the adjacent dive boat Jazz II, where a doctor tried to resuscitate her while Watson remained on the Spoilsport.