JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office on Thursday shared body-worn camera video from its investigation on the day a man died on a training dive in February.
Police said Victor Pierce, 34, was on a training dive with the CDA Technical Institute in Flamingo Lake. He was pulled from the water unresponsive and died in hospice care 16 days later.
In the video, a man in a diving suit, presumably an instructor, can be seen explaining to the Sheriff’s Office hat happened, saying that Pierce was only in the water for about a minute before he got into trouble.
“I turned around, and they’re pointing, what the hell are they pointing at? All I saw was bubbles,” the man explained.
He said another instructor swam out toward the area.
“Brings him up, and all I see is blue,” the man continued.
Below is a portion of body camera footage provided by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.
He said he and a woman then swam over, got Pierce’s head above water and began to swim back toward the shore, and members of the class rushed to help get him out of the water. The man the proceeded to call 911.
An officer asked if Pierce was in the water by himself.
“He was swimming out to us,” the man told police. “He had a tank on, he had all of his gear.”
As noted in the police report, a witness helped to cut the man’s gear off and someone
The man told police Pierce was under water for approximately a minute to 90 seconds.
The medical examiner later said he drowned, but found alcohol intoxication as a contributing factor. It’s unclear if the diving school knew Pierce was intoxicated before he got in the water. The JSO report noted that there was no indication of foul play.
News4JAX spoke with Pierce’s stepfather, Dean Urenda, about what happened.
“I think some protocol and other safety issues haven’t been taken seriously and I think an outside agency has to come in and look at the entire school,” he told us.
RELATED: Petition demands school stop training divers, bring in third-party to investigate two recent deaths
Urenda also wishes everyone would be breathalyzed before being allowed in the water.
Department of Veterans Affairs pulls GI Bill funding
This isn’t the first death that has occurred at CDA. On April 14, 41-year-old Fausto Martins died during an instructional class at CDA.
News4JAX received a letter Thursday that revealed the Department of Veterans Affairs has pulled GI Bill funding from the institute. The letter was addressed to Ray Black, president of CDA.
It states: “Your facility’s approval to train veterans and other eligible persons under the provisions of the various GI Bill Programs is hereby withdrawn.” It goes on to state, “You may no longer certify the enrollment of VA students for GI Bill education benefits enrolled in these programs including commercial diver and diver medical technician.”
The letter states the reasons for this withdrawal are the incidents involving Pierce and Martins. The report also states the instruction equipment and/or instructional personnel may not be adequate to provide training to VA students.
The report says there are 20 veteran education benefit recipients enrolled in programs at CDA.
“I think, overall, with the amount of mistakes and incidences that have happened, I think it does need to be shut down,” Urenda said.
Any impacted veteran can contact the Veterans’ Claims Examiners at 727-319-7440 for assistance.
Urenda said he doesn’t want what happened to his stepson to happen to another family.
“We’re hoping that with whatever information we can help with will stop this from happening to another family,” he said.
“He (Pierce) was a hardworking man and a very good father, so the sky was the limit for Vic,” his stepfather added. “Whatever Vic said he was going to do, he succeeded at it.”