Deadly accident in Thailand, two instructors charged

A New Year’s diving trip for a tourist visiting Phi Phi Island in Thailand ended tragically. As a result of an accident on the boat, Indian-born Alok Kumar Shukla lost his life. Now the local police have announced charges for the two instructors who led the dive.

The incident took place on 31 December 2017. After completing a dive, a group of novice divers were stripping off their equipment on the boat. Alok Kumar Shukla, 25, for whom this was his first dive, had already removed most of his equipment, but when he was about to get rid of his weight belt he fell overboard.

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A rescue operation was immediately undertaken. Three people in diving equipment went underwater. After the victim was taken out on board the boat, CPR was performed and oxygen was administered. The man was then taken to a nearby hospital. Unfortunately, despite one and a half hours of resuscitation, he died. The cause was given as drowning.

[blockquote style=”2″]”We have filed charges of negligence against the two diving instructors present on the boat during the accident. According to our findings, Mr Shukla had not removed the ballast weighing 4kg, however he had removed the other equipment when the accident occurred. A large wave rocked the boat, causing the victim to fall into the water, weighted down with dive ballast. The water at this location is quite deep, so despite the immediate rescue operation, it took some time to find and extract the man to the boat.” – local police representative, Lieutenant Kanakorn Tamakhan, said today – 4/01/2018[/blockquote].

A preliminary medical report suggesting drowning as the cause of death is now available, but police are still waiting for the autopsy results.

Source: phuketgazette.net, thephuketnews.com Photo: wikipedia CC 3.0

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