Boatie who hit diver to pay $17,500

Injured spear fisherman pleads with boaties not to ignore safety flags, buoys

’ve been run over by a boat.” Alice Kebbell nearly threw up when her partner, Bhodi Garven, called her from an ambulance and told her the one thing she always feared when he set off on a spearfishing trip.

Garven had left earlier on the morning of February 5 last year to go spearfishing north of Auckland between Ti Point and Omaha. He swam about 200m from Ti Point with an orange buoy and blue and white dive flag attached to his spear gun on a 20-metre line.

The 41-year-old had just shot at a fish at the popular spot and was taking a breath of air when he felt a thud.

The hull of the 3.5 inflatable power boat struck him on the arm and head.

“I felt a big hit. He — the boat — collided with me,” Garven said.

He then pushed his head out of the water and yelled for help.

At the same time Auckland boatie Carl Allan Whiteman was looking into the water to see what he had hit.

Whiteman told Maritime NZ he was an inexperienced skipper with no formal qualification and it was only the second or third time he had taken the new boat on the water. He had spotted Garven’s orange buoy, but had thought it was a crayfish pot so did not slow down or change direction.

Whiteman, who was on the boat with another adult and two children, turned around and helped Garven into the boat before rushing him back to the wharf.

“I didn’t know how bad the injuries were. I could have died,” Garven said.

“I’m really lucky to be alive because if it would have hit me another little bit, I wouldn’t be talking to you right now and the propeller would have really got me.”

He ended up with two metal plates in his broken and gashed arm and eight stitches at the back of his head to mend the gaping wounds where the boat had struck him.

The self-employed arborist only spent two days in hospital, but his

recovery took a year. Garven was forced to close down his business which left both him and Kebble, who also worked for the company, without jobs.

Garven returned to work at the beginning of the year working for someone else and Kebbell is retraining.

The couple said yesterday’s sentencing provided closure, but they hoped boaties would learn an important lesson to look out for divers and spear fisherman.

Whiteman was sentenced at the North Shore District Court yesterday and was ordered to pay $17,500 in reparation.

Photo / Brett Phibbs Bhodi Garven was badly injured when he was run over by a boat while spear fishing. His head was gashed (left) and required eight stitches, and his broken arm needed two plates.