Tom and Eileen Lonergan | Inspiration for "Open Water"

hello this is dr grande today's question is can i analyze the case of tom and eileen lonergan the story of this couple was the inspiration for the 2003 movie open water just a reminder i'm not diagnosing anybody in this video only speculating about what could be happening in a situation like this if you enjoyed this video please like it subscribe to my channel and consider supporting me on patreon i will put the link to patreon in the description for this video so first i'll look at the background this case i'll move to the timeline of the disappearance and presume deaths and then i'll move to my analysis thomas lonergan was born on december 28 1964. eileen lonergan was born on march 3 1969. they're both from the united states they both lived in baton rouge louisiana they both graduated from louisiana state university on june 24 1988 the couple married tom worked as a chemical engineer and eileen was a teacher the couple loved to be outdoors among other activities they were into camping and diving the couple had spent either two or three years in the peace corps in the south pacific they traveled from fiji to australia for a trip they were planning on returning to united states after that on sunday january 25 1998 33 year old tom and 28 year old eileen were on the group scuba diving trip they were on board a vessel named mv outer edge it was on the last outing for that day at about 2 30 p.m the vessel arrived at saint crispin's reef in australia's great barrier reef a popular attraction for divers this is in the coral sea off the coast of queensland the group was about 38 nautical miles northeast of port douglas there were 26 passengers all together 24 of the passengers on the boat conducted their dives and returned to the vessel about 40 minutes later tom and eileen lonergan did not the skipper a man named geoffrey ian narn did not notice that the couple was missing his crew and the passengers did not notice either i'll talk more about what went wrong with the counting procedures in the analysis the vessel returned to port douglas without tom and eileen lonergan after returning the crew members noticed bags and shoes that the lonergans left on the boat but they didn't think too much of them two days later the skipper noticed that nobody had claimed the bags he searched them and found tom lonergan's wallet and passport he contacted the place where the couple was staying and was told they never returned he notified the authorities this was about 51 hours after the vessel had abandoned the couple a massive search effort was launched but there was no sign of the couple the lonergans were never seen again on february 5 1998 a woman's wetsuit which was the same size that eileen would have worn was found about 60 miles from port douglas the wetsuit had a couple of tears in it that appeared to have been made by coral there was no blood on the wetsuit based on the barnacles on the wetsuit zipper investigators were able to determine it had been lost on january 26th a few months later more diving gear was found including buoyancy control devices compressed air tanks one of eileen's fins and a diver slate this is a device that divers use to communicate underwater they can write on it and another diver can read it here's what was written on the divers slate monday january 26 1998 8 am to anyone that can help us we have been abandoned on ag and court reef by mv outer edge january 25 1998 3 pm please help to rescue us before we die help this evidence suggests that they were alive 16 hours after being abandoned if the crew had just caught the mistake sooner the couple could have easily been rescued in time now moving to the analysis what happened to the couple it is believed that the couple suffered from dehydration and as a result became delirious they removed their diving outfits they drowned because they could not continue to tread water if they had kept the diving suits on the buoyancy of the suits would have aided them in not drowning another very real possibility is that tiger sharks ate them why was the couple left behind the regulations at that time for dive boats required three items that should have kept this disaster from occurring a passenger manifest a tracking procedure where divers have to be logged back onto the boat after they come out of the water and a head count that occurs before the boat returns to shore tom and eileen were on the passenger manifest they were never logged back onto the boat which means the boat should have never departed but the story about the head count is a little murkier some crew members say that a head count took place some passengers remembered the crew members attempting account but other crew members were not as confident so either they counted incorrectly or they never counted at all the shuttle bus that was supposed to transport the lonergans back to their hotel called outer edge and told them two people hadn't shown up for the return trip this seems like a pretty clear clue that the vessel left people behind the crew at outer edge didn't think anything of it the next opportunity to save tom and eileen would come just a day later the mv outer edge returned to the same area with a new group of divers they found two sets of weights on the seafloor the crew never connected the weights with the idea that tom and eileen were missing they never put it together they just viewed it as a bonus free weights the crew missed another opportunity to save the lives of the couple and they failed to inspect the bags of the illanogans left behind on the vessel so here we see a series of mistakes by a crew that was probably experiencing a diffusion a responsibility like no one person was actually responsible for accomplishing anything because somebody else would take care of it so really this was irresponsibility this case seems relatively straightforward it's fairly clear what happened but because the bodies of tom and eileen were never recovered there have been two other theories put out there about what could have happened i don't think either of these theories are good theories but i will review them because they are of some interest theory number one the couple staged their own deaths the idea here is that the couple wanted to start over with their lives and they saw an opportunity when they noticed a crew that had trouble counting i guess i don't know how they would have known that there are a few reasons this theory has remained popular including the skipper of another dive boat visited the reef the day after the lonergans were left behind he told the police the head count on his return ship was greater than the number that he had taken out his passengers were all supposed to be italian yet he heard what he referred to as american voices the police received at least 25 reports of people who claimed to have spied the couple so a lot of people like in nightclubs and bars and restaurants said that they saw this couple come in yet of course nobody confirmed that nobody took their picture i think it's one of those effects where people just are aware of the story and their imagination runs a little wild there are many problems with this first theory none of the couple's assets were accessed they had insurance policies that were never claimed they had money in bank accounts that was left untouched it's not clear how they could have made it back to shore swimming was not an option at that distance i suppose they could have arranged to have another vessel pick them up moving to theory number two this was a murder-suicide or they both wanted to die there is some evidence that suggests the couple was in a bad place as far as mood tom's personal diary which he left in the hotel had a dark tone to it here's what he wrote just five months before the disappearance quote like a student who has finished an exam i feel that my life is complete and i am ready to die as far as i can tell from here my life can only get worse it has peaked and it's all downhill from here until my funeral unquote eileen also had less than uplifting diary entries on january 9 1998 she wrote quote tom hopes to die a quick and painless death and he hopes it happens soon tom's not suicidal but he's got a death wish that could lead him to what he desires and i could get caught in that unquote she actually misspelled the word painless but it's believed that is the word she was trying to write she also wrote our lives are so entwined now we are hardly two individuals where we are now goes beyond dependence beyond love some people were shocked about the reference to a quick and painless death but then they remembered that he was married his sentiment is not particularly unusual for that population family members say that the diary entries were taken out of context there was a lot of other material in the diaries which did not indicate some type of death wish the difficulty with this second theory is that the way they died was really horrible who would choose that method one other version of this theory is that the couple didn't try to die but rather they were a little reckless like they were inviting disaster another passenger reported that the couple told the diving instructor they would quote go off and do their own thing unquote the police said that the lonergans did stay under the water beyond the prescribed time so they didn't come up when the other divers came up moving to the next question could the couple have survived long enough to be rescued like did they have a chance were they definitely doomed once they were left behind the couple was abandoned within swimming distance of well-lighted diving platforms and coral outcrops considering their age and the fact that they were in good health tom and eileen almost certainly could have made it to one of those locations there were about five hours of daylight left when the boat departed without them one theory around this is they simply couldn't see the platforms and the outcrops from where they were like on the surface of the water they were just too low so if they didn't know what direction they were in before they went in the water they wouldn't know where to swim the next question what happened as far as a criminal investigation the skipper of the dive boat was charged with unlawful killing this is essentially the same as manslaughter he was found not guilty i think what happened here is that the jury heard so many conflicting accounts from the crew members they didn't feel they could blame just one person like they didn't want to put all that blame on only the captain eileen's father attended the trial he accepted the verdict suggesting that the skipper taking all the blame would not have been justice he added that he would have liked a scene some way for the group to be held responsible so some type of charge that would feature smaller mistakes by individual crew members kind of adding up to a criminal charge i'm not aware there's anything really like that available in the law so this was just one of those circumstances where again we see a diffusion of responsibility a lot of people made mistakes but nobody made a mistake that rose to a criminal level there was no finding of guilt at a criminal level but at a civil level we see a different story the diving company outer edge dive pleaded guilty to negligence it was fined and eventually closed i find it interesting that the slogan for outer edge dive was to the edge and back so to the edge and an ellipsis three dots and then the words and back i'm guessing it was selected after less attractive but more accurate slogans were discarded like to the edge and back mostly to the edge end of story and to the edge return trip optional what lessons can we learn in this case the lesson here is that you can't rely on people to count as high as 26 this is the sad reality of innumeracy and society and numeracy is the mathematical version of illiteracy it used to be that a numeracy was considered to be most related to constructs like probability statistics multiplication and division but now apparently just counting is too much to ask those are my thoughts in the case of tom and eileen lonergan please put any opinions and thoughts in the comments section they always generate an interesting dialogue as always i hope you found my analysis to take it to the edge and back thanks for watching some people were shocked by the reference to a quick and painless death made by tom but then they remembered he was married so it all made sense to them some people were shocked by tom's reference to a quick and painless death but then they remembered that he was married so it all made sense at that point some people were shocked by tom's reference to a quick and painless death but then they remembered he was married and thought well that makes sense some people were surprised by tom's reference to a quick and painless death but then when they remembered he was married they were like never mind uh

Channel: Dr. Todd Grande

Views: 191,587

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Id: KSq9SnnIeHI

Length: 14min 6sec (846 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 29 2021