Marines focus on safety
Recruit's death spurs changes in policy, attitude at Parris Island training pool
Published Sunday March 5 2006
By LORI YOUNT
The Beaufort Gazette

Since becoming a combat water survival instructor on Parris Island a year ago, Sgt. Barrett Dilley has seen changes at the training pool where a 19-year-old recruit drowned in February 2005.

Jason Tharp's drowning and the subsequent court-martial trial of Staff Sgt. Nadya Lopez, the combat water survival instructor who was training Tharp on the day of his death, made national news. Lopez was found not guilty of negligent homicide on Feb. 22, but Dilley said several oversight and practical adjustments have been made at the pool, some in light of reports that came out after the incident.

"It's a sad thing something like that had to happen to speed things along," Dilley said, standing in his instructor's swim tank and shorts at the side of the training pool, a building kept at tropical temperatures.

For example, 12 cameras were installed at the pool in the fall, and the instructors and their supervisors use them for training purposes.

"We just see things we need to work on," Dilley said of reviewing himself on tape.

Also new to the pool staff is a permanent position of officer in charge, in which an officer who is also certified combat water survival instructor oversees the operation of the pool.

Capt. David Bell, who began the job in November, said his main job, besides overseeing the pool deck, is to ensure all the base's orders regarding the pool are followed.

One new policy provides additional supervision of unqualified recruits, which Tharp was. In the shallow end of the pool the same instructor is in charge an entire week, which Bell said helps them build a relationship and rapport with recruits struggling during their water survival qualification.

"The No. 1 key is being relaxed," he said.

Once the unqualified recruits graduate to the deep end of the pool, two sets of instructors' eyes are on them at all times -- the instructor working with the recruit in the water and an additional instructor watching from the side of the pool.

Antowan Lindsay, an unqualified recruit from Buffalo, N.Y., who said his mother never let him swim as a child because of his asthma, said he felt safe in the pool.

"All the instructors make sure safety is the first thing," he said. "You can reach out and touch them. They help you up."

On his third day at the pool, Lindsay still was unable to swim 25 meters across the shallow end, on his back, propelling himself by waving his arms and moving his legs in a haphazard frog kick, almost as if he were trying to make a snow angel in the water. Bell said recruits are taught to swim this way because the purpose of this training is more to teach floating than swimming.

But Lindsay said though he hadn't made it out of the shallow end and had only a few more days to learn to float effectively, he was certain he'd qualify.

"This recruit doesn't think -- this recruit knows -- I'll pass," he said, slightly slipping out of the third-person in which he's been drilled to speak.

If a recruit doesn't pass the basic water survival test by the end of his or her platoon's pool week, the recruit can be held back in training and placed in a different platoon twice, Bell said. After not qualifying after three weeks, a recruit can be sent packing, but Bell said this rarely happens. He said no recruits have been dropped solely because of failing water survival training since October, and three were dropped the year before.

"They have so many opportunities to pass, they almost have to try not to," Bell said.

This "recycle" option is why there's no need for a specific swimming platoon that provides remedial training to struggling recruits, as other specially formed platoons bolster recruits in other areas, Bell said.

"It's a manpower issue," he said. There are 19 combat water survival instructors at the pool.

The pool's inspection process also is tighter since Tharp's death, Parris Island spokesman Maj. Guillermo Canedo said.

The pool staff now conducts daily inspections of the pool and its equipment, whereas before inspections were done weekly or monthly, Canedo said. Plus, he said the pool and its staff receive a more thorough monthly inspection from the base's operations staff.

An emergency happens at the pool about every three months, Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Houle testified at Lopez's court-martial. Since Tharp's death, there has been one emergency, Canedo said.

The ongoing training of the instructors has become increasingly intense, Dilley said. Besides the unannounced monthly emergency drill involving the fire department, he said instructors practice emergency scenarios daily between training recruits, when they used to do so maybe only a few times a week. He said the constant drilling and review of tapes has helped increase the instructors' communication.

"We're more open with each other," Dilley said. "We're really responsive to criticism."

Their whole attitude of training recruits in the pool has been evolving, he said, and changes in the structure of the water survival qualifications may be rearranged soon to put more emphasis on training than qualifying recruits by giving more remedial instruction at all levels.

Canedo said he couldn't confirm any changes planned for the program.

Dilley said the pool is safer than when Tharp drowned, saying it's "near impossible" for anything to happen, but he doesn't discredit the instructors there the day the recruit died.

"They trained us to be as safe as we are," he said.

Ellie