Coroner reopens diver death inquiry after accounts differ

CHRISTCHURCH: An inquiry into the death of a crayfish scuba diver has been reopened after a coroner raised concerns about differing stories given by witnesses.

Thai national BuaNgoen ‘‘Goy’’ Thongsi, who had been living in Christchurch, failed to surface while diving for crayfish in February 2015.

The 37yearold’s body was recovered from Motunau Beach, in North Canterbury, two days later.

A twoday inquest before coroner Brigitte Windley was held in Christchurch in June.

But Ms Windley reopened the inquest yesterday after finding she was not satisfied with the ‘‘reliability of evidence’’, despite questioning under oath.

The earlier hearing had failed to provide a plausible and cogent explanation for Ms Thongsi’s death, she said yesterday, and she wanted to recall some witnesses who might face ‘‘confronting and uncomfortable’’ questions.

‘‘This is an unusual step and not one I have taken lightly,’’ Ms Windley said.

An interim nonpublication order prevents naming some witnesses and reporting other details of the case.

Two men on the diving trip have given conflicting accounts of what happened.

Ms Thongsi had dived from a boat off the Motunau coast and resurfaced after her spare regulator was leaking.

The skipper, an experienced diver, pushed the regulator a few times which he said appeared to fix it, the inquest heard.

Another member of the party helped Ms Thongsi as the skipper returned to the wheel of the boat.

But as Ms Thongsi went back below the water’s surface, witnesses’ versions of events differ.

The skipper thinks she was breathing as she went back under, and saw bubbles emerge.

However, another man described her as showing no signs of life, looking through him, and sinking straight down.

Those varying accounts were hard for Ms Windley to reconcile.

When no bubbles were seen on the surface, the skipper yesterday said he grabbed a spare oxygen tank and dived to within 3m of the seafloor before realising he had not turned the air on.

He resurfaced but did not dive down again and they returned to shore.

David Boldt, counsel assisting the coroner, questioned why it took the skipper nearly an hour before ringing 111.

‘‘There’s a lot of emotions going on in my head. I was peed off for a lot of reasons and I’m not going to tell why and I was just trying to think things over,’’ the witness told police.

Asked why he did not dive again to look for Ms Thongsi, the skipper said that after four minutes without any bubbles, he thought she was dead. The boat would have also drifted away from the spot she was last seen.

‘‘I was just hoping that she would come up,’’ the man said.

‘‘I’m guilty for not going down the second time, if that’s what you’re saying. I should’ve gone back down.’’

On the shore, the skipper allegedly told a volunteer fisheries officer he had lost someone from his diving party, and she had ‘‘sunk like a stone’’.

‘‘I might have overexaggerated. I can’t remember saying it. You can’t sink like a stone. You sink, like, naturally,’’ he told the inquest yesterday.

The fisheries officer would also give evidence, Mr Boldt said, that ‘‘nothing felt right’’ about the way the skipper and his mates were reacting about losing a diver.

When asked about that yesterday, the skipper said: ‘‘No comment.’’

The occupants of the boat were like ‘‘stunned mullets’’, he said. ‘‘We were devastated.’’

Asked by Ms Windley if he might have done anything different that day, the skipper said he would have phoned emergency services immediately.

Ms Thongsi’s body was found just 100m from her last known position at a depth of about 10m.

Police national dive squad officers found nothing wrong with Ms Thongsi’s equipment, the inquest heard.

When she was found on the seafloor, she had nearly a full tank of air. Her gear functioned perfectly on a reconstruction dive.

A medical expert found nothing in Ms Thongsi’s medical history to explain the sudden death of a seemingly healthy woman.

The inquest resumes tomorrow. — NZME