Texas child's dive death raises serious questions

Serious questions have been raised six weeks after the unexplained death of 12-year-old dive trainee Dylan Harrison, who passed away after a 'miscommunication between a student and the instructor' on a scuba training course in Terrell, Texas.

Dylan was hoping to secure her open-water certification at the privately-owned Scuba Ranch on August 16 2025, but the child went missing. She was one of eight students who were accompanied by diving instructor William Armstrong and an unnamed dive master.

The group descended to a five-metre deep platform, but the 'miscommunication' meant a trainee went to the surface, while Armstrong brought the other divers up. They redescended, but while Armstrong and the dive master say the divers filed down a descent line, another student on the course has alleged everyone descended at once. Once back at the platform, a headcount revealed Dylan was missing. The Dallas County sheriff's office dive team, who had been training at the lake, launched a search and found her at a depth of about 13 metres, some way from the platform.

The investigation is focused on several issues, including an apparently delayed response to a diving emergency, and buddying-up of two 12-year-old trainees in poor visibility. Officers also failed to retrieve and analyse data from the dive computers worn by Dylan, her instructor, the dive master and one of the other trainees in the group, according to a US news report. The unit belonging to one of the two dive professionals present is since said to have been lost in a 27m-deep lake.

"This is the first case I've had where answers have not been forthcoming, and evidence wasn't gathered at the scene or shortly thereafter, by the people who know what to do," says lawyer and diver David Concannon, who is providing his services pro bono to Dylan's family. He likened the failure to consider dive computer data to ignoring the black box after a plane crash.