HunnaThaStunna

Water is thicker than air, therefor light travels through it slower. The first colors you lose as you go down, are the reds, oranges, and yellows. It basically follows the ROYGBIV, in that the deeper you go, the more of those colors you lose. It's why the ocean appears to be a deep blue in open water.

He had a few that he tried to use. The first one was that I broke my contract by harassing marine life. The only problem with that, is that I learned how to handle an octopus by co-workers, was praised multiple times by him on getting pictures of customers holding one I had dug out, and that I had 150+ pictures of multiple of his employees doing the exact same thing that ranged from 6 months before my injury to almost 2 years after it.

He also tried claiming that I was a seaman and that the state of HI didn't have the right to rule on the case. However, by definition, a seaman is someone who is permanently assigned to a vessel, and whose job ensures the functionality of said vessel. We worked with multiple different boats, chartering seats on them, so I wasn't permanently assigned to one. I also didn't aid in the navigation or running of the boat. All I did was get my customers on/off it and take them diving once we reached our location.

Another was that he claimed that I wasn't an employee and that I wasn't entitled to worker's comp. It was proven multiple times that we had an employer-employee relationship, regardless of what the contract said. An independent contractor doesn't have set hours determined by the employer, which I did, and also doesn't have responsibilities such as I did like maintaining the company vehicle, building structures in the shop/painting various walls/floors of the shop, cleaning duties such as vacuuming and cleaning the bathroom, etc.

You would think it wouldn't but it does... a lot =/

Certainly! I had 2 brothers that I had certified a week and a half before, along with their dad who was on leave from Iraq and an older couple, the last 3 of which were doing their discover scuba dive. We were heading back to the boat when the older brother got my attention and signaled he had found an octopus. So, thinking nothing of it, I swam over to him to get it out and play with, as I had done countless times before. Normally, they hide in holes and are a pain to get out. This one, however, was out on a small coral head, so I figured it would be really easy. It was MUCH bigger than anticipated though, and was way stronger that what I was ready for. 2 pumps through its siphons and it had drug my hands 5+ ft from where I had initially caught it, to a larger coral head, where it made its way under an over-hang. My left hand was on its head, while my right hand was wrapped up in tentacles. Once it got to the over-hang, it used some of its arms and pulled itself further in, at which point it turned and chomped on my left middle finger twice. The first one did the majority of the damage, the 2nd one lifted a smaller piece of skin up which you can see in the pictures. I had no vision of what was going on, but felt a very sudden, sharp pain, saw a big green cloud (red appears green at that depth), wrapped my right hand around my finger, signaled to my divers that the dive was over, and swam as fast as I could back to the boat without losing inexperienced divers along the way. Took about 12 minutes to make it back to the boat, another 10 to get onto the boat due to having no available hands for the ladder and having to deal with ~8ft swells, and another 15 or so before all the other groups were back on board. Then had a 10 or so min ride back to the harbor, where an ambulance was waiting for me.

I only flew out there once, for the hearing after he appealed the initial ruling. Total, I spent about $3k on the flight to/from there and a hotel/food, and about $500 on mailing all of my paperwork throughout the 3 year period. It wasn't about the money, but more about not letting him get away with what he did. He was operating for 4 1/2 years without any sort of insurance to cover any of his employees. He also contacted PADI and lied saying that I broke standards by taking DSD's to 60 ft (max depth is 40ft for them, which was as deep as I took them) and tried to have my teaching status revoked. Still not sure exactly what I will end up with in my pocket, but I do know he has ~$16k in fines, ~80k in my medical bills, however much he spent on his attorney throughout all of this, and whatever the board rules he owes me. I don't take getting fucked like that very well =/