It is always a tragedy when an officer of the law dies, but when the officer dies due to a preventable accident the loss is even more tragic. Timothy Schock of the Chesapeake Police department survived the Marine Corps and years on the street only to be killed when two pieces of equipment on his dive gear failed.
His rig’s power inflater, a smaller mask that inflates or deflates a buoyancy compensator, stopped working while Schock was training underwater. When he was unable to stay afloat, Schock tried to drop his weighted belt, but, according to a report on the fatal accident, the release mechanism stuck and coud not be opened. The malfunctioning inflater and weight belt combined to make him run out of air and unable to surface.
Tests done all the police department’s dive equipment following Schock’s death showed that all the dive team’s weigh belts were defective. My question, as a Virginia personal injury lawyer, is why weren’t the belts checked ad replaced before the divers went into the water? This was not an emergency call that required immediate response. It was a planned training dive, meaning there was plenty of time to follow all safety procedures and do extra equipment checks.
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