Australian pearling company Paspaley has been fined $60,000 for failing to provide a safe working environment for its pearl divers in connection to the death of Jarrod Hampton, who drowned while diving for pearls near Broome, Western Australia, in 2012.
The 22-year-old Melbourne man died on his second day as a pearl diver for Paspaley, working off Eighty Mile Beach, about 160km south of Broome, on 14 April 2012.
He was employed as a drift diver, which meant he was one of several divers that collected pearls from the sea floor while being towed by a slow-moving boat. It was his first experience drift diving but he was an experienced and qualified scuba diver and had received training.
Hampton completed all nine dives on his first day on the boat. On his eighth dive of the second day, a crew member on the boat saw him surface prematurely and then disappear back below the water.
The dive was called off and Hampton was hauled in by his oxygen line, which connected from a compressor on the boat to his weight belt. Witnesses told the court that it took between five and 10 minutes to bring him aboard and he was unconscious when he reached the boat. He could not be revived.
Hampton’s death prompted a two-year investigation by Worksafe WA and in July 2014 the watchdog charged Paspaley with breaching the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1984 for failing to provide and maintain a safe work environment.
Worksafe alleged that at the time of Hampton’s death, Paspaley did not have a written emergency procedure for rescuing an incapacitated diver from the water and the crew of the boat had not practiced any emergency drills about rescuing divers.
It put those policies in place soon after his death, and also now has at least one crew member trained as a rescue swimmer and one who permanently watches the dive.
On Monday Paspaley pleaded guilty to the charge and was fined $60,000 and ordered to pay $5,000 in court costs.
Hampton’s parents, Tony and Robyn Hampton, were at Broome magistrates court to hear the guilty plea.
It’s understood the Worksafe prosecution was the primary reason that a coronial inquest is yet to be scheduled, more than three years after Hampton’s death.
In a statement reported by ABC News, Tony Hampton said his family’s lack of knowledge about his son’s death has had “a significant impact on our wellbeing”.
“We have been completely kept in the dark,” he said. “We have had no access to any part of the investigation process.
“On a number of occasions Robyn has turned to me and said: ‘I can see how people go mad’.”
In a statement released after the sentencing, Lex McCulloch, commissioner of Worksafe WA, said that anyone employing divers needed an effective plan to identify divers in trouble and retrieve them in an emergency.
“Working underwater is a high-risk operation with potentially fatal consequences if anything goes wrong,” McCulloch said.
