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July 9th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda A mass exodus of pearl divers from the industry, prompted by a significant drop in pay, has put inexperienced operators at risk, including a newcomer who died.
Veteran divers have expressed concern of cases such as that of Jarrod Hampton, a 22-year-old who drowned in April just after he had joined Paspaley Pearls as a diver.
Members of the crew raised their concerns about Mr Hampton’s death, along with what they say is a lack of adequate training for divers entering the industry.
A trained scuba instructor, Mr Hampton was part of a crew on the Paspaley 2, which included eight divers, an engineer, a cook, a domestic, a deckhand and the skipper.
Five of the eight divers on board had never performed what is known as drift diving, which involves being dragged behind the boat underwater.
Head diver Sam Morton was responsible for supervising the newcomers and recalled Mr Hampton getting into trouble before he drowned, with no-one on deck to pull him out of the water.
“It was always going to be a worry with that amount of new workers in any workforce, let alone a dangerous job like diving and underwater,” Mr Morton told ABC TV on Monday.
“So, yeah it was always playing on my mind about what the new guys were doing under the water and how they’re getting on.”
Mr Hampton surfaced from the water and put his hand up to signal for help but the crew failed in its attempts to resuscitate him, with no defibrillator on board and the vessel eight hours from shore.
A diving safety expert said the Australian standard for most occupational divers was to have a standby on deck.
Pearl Producers’ Association executive officer Brett McCallum said the industry did not feel it necessary to have a standby diver available.
“The authorities have no concerns in regards to how we are operating at the moment and they’ve allowed the vessels to continue to go,” Mr McCallum said.
“The industry will continue to operate on what it believes to be the manner in which it’s operated for some time and if we have to make adjustments and make changes at the end of the investigations, then we will do so.”
Former head diver at Paspaley, Mick Case, said it wasn’t safe to have so many first-timers onboard, with the acceptable number one or two.
Mr Case quit Paspaley, along with nine senior divers with more than eight years of combined drift diving experience, many of whom were replaced by first-time divers.
“With a mass exodus like that … you can’t put that many green divers into water with a few experienced guys to look after them,” Mr Case said.
“I thought there’s gonna be a fatality soon.”
Paspaley cut the price for each wild oyster shell from $4.50 to $3.50 when the global financial crisis hit, wiping about $20,000 from the pay packets of experienced divers each season.
WorkSafe is investigating the death.
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