SYDNEY – Australian safety officials said yesterday that they were investigating a dive boat company that accidentally left a US tourist behind while he was snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef, forcing the panicked man to swim to another boat for help.
A spokesperson for the company denied Ian Cole was ever in danger. But the incident drew immediate comparisons to the infamous case of US citizens 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.Cole, aged 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 adrenalin 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.’Safety standards for recreational dive boat operators on the reef were strengthened after the Lonergans were abandoned in 1998. Their case served as an inspiration for the 2003 movie Open Water. – Nampa-AP
