The family of Dylan Harrison this week filed a wrongful death lawsuit in the wake of the 12-year-old’s death last August.
In the 40-page legal document reported by Fox News, the plaintiffs state:
“Based on the amount of air left in [Harrison’s] scuba tank on the surface before she went missing and the amount of air left in the tank when she was found, it can be surmised that [she] was alive and breathing off her tank for several minutes after she was last seen. During this time, [Harrison] was alone, in poor visibility, and unable to reach the surface.”
The wrongful death lawsuit claims the dive industry ignored safety issues over a period of years.
Last August, Harrison was participating in a training course at the Scuba Ranch in Terrell, Texas administered by William Armstrong, who was working for the Scuba Toys dive shop.
After Harrison’s death, the Scuba Ranch suspended Armstrong from teaching at the facility along with the Scuba Toys dive shop.
The following October, Armstrong, who was the assistant chief deputy in the Collin County Sheriff’s Office, resigned from his position.
Additionally, the news outlet broadcast a video at the time showing the owner of the Scuba Toys dive shop apparently admitting this may not have been the first death the shop was allegedly involved in.
The video shows a standards meeting held in 2017, where Joe Johnson, owner of the Scuba Toys dive shop, says in response to an instructor’s comment about not taking lawsuits lightly:
“All I know is we’ve killed, what, four people, five people and we’ve never even done a deposition. Our insurance company just settles. John Witherspoon said we can kill two people a year, we fine.”
Johnson’s 2017 reply led to the instructor who asked the question quitting the dive shop and sending the video to a local official at NAUI.
According to the Fox News affiliate, that official, John Banks, a former NAUI regional director, forwarded the video on to the organization’s then-head of training and standards and subsequently the then-CEO of NAUI.
On October 27, NAUI released a statement:
“We are deeply saddened by the dive training incident that happened on August 16th, 2025. Both the dive instructor and dive master present during the incident are NAUI (National Association of Underwater Instructors) sanctioned leaders. As with all of our sanctioned and certified instructors, safety has been and always will be our top priority. Our team will work closely with the appropriate authorities if needed. At this time, we are unable to comment further on this pending investigation.”
NAUI, PADI Americas, PADI Worldwide, Scuba Ranch operator Gregory Knauer, ScubaToys owner Joe Johnson along with Armstrong and the divemaster Jonathan Roussel were named in the lawsuit.
Neither NAUI nor PADI have issued statements regarding the lawsuit as of press time.
Chad Ruback, a lawyer who’s not affiliated with the case, told the local news outlet the lawsuit could have repercussions for the dive industry:
“When there’s a disaster like this, there’s not just one person or one entity to blame. This lawsuit can change the standards by which scuba is instructed, particularly with regard to minors. This lawsuit could change the way facilities are supervised, such as the Spring Fed Lake facility in which this disaster occurred. It could certainly make individual instructors more cautious.
“My guess is that if a jury saw that video, the jury’s going to be adding another zero to the amount they were thinking of prior.”
Scuba Toys shut down for good on Jan. 31, according to Fox News.
