Better training urged after Australia gap-year traveller died on diving trip

A coroner has called for first-time Scuba divers in Australia to be given better training after a British tourist drowned while on a diving trip to the Great Barrier Reef.

Backpacker Bethany Farrell, 23, of Colchester, Essex, was just six days into a gap-year trip to the country when she died at Blue Pearl Bay in the Whitsunday Islands.

An inquest found that while approximately 23ft underwater, she had become separated from her diving instructor, Fiona McTavish, who had momentarily turned away from the group of beginners.

Ms Farrell panicked and swam to the surface but was unable to stay afloat. Her body was found 35 feet down on the seafloor an hour later.

Coroner David O'Connell, of Queensland Coroners' Court, said the university graduate had not been given adequate training before her dive, or appropriate supervision during it, and criticised "serious shortcomings" in how the dive was conducted.

He made 12 recommendations, saying that changes to the diving industry were vital in order to ensure a similar tragedy did not happen again.

In his findings, published after a three-day inquest in Mackay, he said: "It is evident that Miss Farrell's death occurred due to the introductory diver having inadequate, demonstrated or practised, skills with Scuba equipment, and her being in an environment (underwater), with which she is not familiar.

"Scuba diving, whether around the inner islands, or along the Great Barrier Reef, is a large and important industry. It is vital that appropriate standards are set, maintained and observed, to ensure that the activity is conducted safely."

The inquest was told that Ms Farrell, who had been travelling through Australia with two friends, was given a dive briefing on board the sailing catamaran Wings III ahead of the dive.

Her dive group was later tested on a range of practical skills before heading underwater - but the coroner found there was "no suggestion that any introductory diver was properly instructed about achieving and maintaining positive buoyancy on the surface".

The inquest also heard Ms Farrell had experienced some issues with her equipment, showing difficulty with her equaliser and regulator.

Visibility during the dive was said to be poor - up to 16ft at best - and as Ms McTavish negotiated some coral, she rolled over and took her eyes off the beginners for approximately 10 seconds.

When she turned back, she could not see Ms Farrell.

Mr O'Connell found the English graduate had resurfaced for a little over 40 seconds, with witnesses describing hearing a diver call out or waving their arms in distress.

The skipper carrying out "surface watch" - looking out for those undertaking water activities - did not see her.

When Ms Farrell was eventually found, efforts to revive her were unsuccessful.

Mr O'Connell's recommendations, which will be referred to the Office of Industrial Relations, Queensland's equivalent of the Health and Safety Executive, included better training for divers before they head into open water, with elementary dive skills taught until competently demonstrated in a controlled environment such as a swimming pool.

He also recommended reducing the introductory dive instructor ratio to two-to-one, and one-to-one if conditions were poor, and said instructors should always be within arm's-length of their divers.