Lance Corporal George Partridge Wiki
Lance Corporal George Partridge Biography
Who was Lance Corporal George Partridge?
A soldier has died during an army diving lesson after skipping a stage of his five-week training course, an investigation has found.
Lance Corporal George Partridge, 27, had been on the course for four weeks when he died while exercising at the National Diving and Activities Center near the Welsh border.
The centre, located in Tidenham, Gloucestershire, has sunken planes, buses and armored vehicles in the quarry bed where divers can carry out practice operations.
Causes of Death
On March 26, 2018, the soldier and 11 other trainees were scheduled to undertake the 19th dive in their course, which involved descending to a depth of 21 to 23 metres, the inquest, which is taking place in Gloucester, heard.
But the decision was made to skip the exercise and go directly to dive 20 of the program, which involved descending into a submerged helicopter to a depth of 26-27 meters.
L/Corporal Partridge, who was described as the best student in his group, went downstairs at 11am with his ‘friend of his’ Stephen Hart, but got into trouble minutes later.
When he was brought to the surface, his mask was hanging down and both of his air tanks were found to be empty, the investigation heard.
The diving supervisor, Staff Sgt. Justin Dolly, told the grand jury that Dive 19 was skipped because the students had made two deeper dives the previous week, one to 30 meters in the Solent off Southampton.
He agreed with Gloucestershire Assistant Coroner Roland Wooderson, who suggested the reason for the change was “to do something more interesting and recognize the helicopter”.
“We decided to dive down to the wreckage of the helicopter, which was more interesting than what they had seen in the previous four weeks of training,” Sgt. Dolly said.
At the start of the inquest, Gloucestershire Assistant Coroner Roland Wooderson told the jury: “I was taking part in an Army diver training course.” George was with colleagues at the National Dive Center in Chepstow on March 26, 2018.
He participated in a dive, but towards the end he did not respond to communications. A reserve diver was deployed to rescue George, found him and pulled him out of the water.
Medical assistance was sought, but George was sadly declared deceased.
Investigation
“Several investigations and inquiries have been carried out since his death and you will know more about them in due course from him.”
The investigation began by showing the jury a mannequin wearing the same diving jacket and equipment that L/C Partridge was wearing, including the main air cylinder, backup cylinder, inflation tank, pressure gauges, and mask.
Sergeant Dolly told the jury that L/C Partridge had been “very well.”
“One of the instructors rated him as the best student in the course,” he said.
“I thought he was very fit and robust and more turned on than other members of the course.”
He said divers had an audio communication system, but it was unreliable and surface dive attendants resorted to pulling on a lifeline, using signals similar to Morse code.
He said that he saw two sets of bubbles surfacing from L/C Partridge and his ‘friend of his’ Stephen Hart and that they appeared to be working together to unravel a line.
After ten minutes, they tried to use the voice communications system to tell the men to surface, but got no response.
One of the attendees thought L/C Partridge had sent a signal to the lifeline, but didn’t feel it was enough to be sure he was communicating.
None of the divers responded to a lifeline signal to call them, but then Hart indicated that he was ascending.
“I immediately dispatched the reserve diver, Corporal Michael Watson,” Sgt. Dolly said.
She said that when George surfaced, she could see that he was not wearing his face mask.
“He was hanging out of his suit,” she said. When he surfaced, I think he was unconscious. This was at 11:17.
We pulled it out of the water and called 999 right away. I also pressed the panic button on the jetty. George’s air cylinders were investigated and both were empty.
Eliot Woolf QC, representing the family, asked Sergeant Dolly if he believed that the amount of time the students had been diving deeper than 10 meters during the course was enough for them to safely dive to the helicopter.
“All the boxes had been checked in the lead up to this dive,” she said.
But when he was asked again, he added, “In my opinion, they (the students) could have done with mid-range depth training.”
He added that he had not been taught the air resistance tables, which show how long a diver can safely stay at depth, at the time of the incident.
He said the military had introduced the use of air resistance tables in late 2018.
