re: The story of two LSU alums forgotten and stranded in open ocean by dive-trip boat

Sorry for the technical brain fart, but the first submission crashed and didn’t show up so I reposted and the “first” appeared later...
Probably user error somehow, but damned if I know what happened....

Son and I got left by the dive boat off of caha Muerto Puerto Rico in 1990. Swam to the island and caught a ride back in. Dive shop was already trying to get their equipment deposit back.

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apparently knew about this 7 years ago and I have no idea what the journal writings that I was referencing even means anymore lol.

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tommy's personal journal. The diving company tried to avoid liability in the situation by implying he was suicidal.

fricking scum. Anything to avoid blaming the crew for not counting.

Tommy just got married to the love of his life and was about to start a successful career after having done a stint in the peace corps.

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cousin was a roommate of the guy in college.

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school is 8 semesters long or more. Tommy lived in at least 3 different dorms and had different roommates even in the same dorm in different semesters.

Your cousin wasn't a guy from Florida named Eric who drove a purple supra, lived in kirby smith and loved iron maiden was he?

Did he happen to be a huge bodybuilder with a red vette he was restoring?

Does he recognize any of these names?

Jimmy
Melissa
Marlon
Robert
Dennis
Greg
Herve
Juan
Abel
Irosama
Eric

that's a very specific list

Holt crap I think I knew that guy. I never put that together. It really pissed me off when they tried to blame them and implied they were faking it etc

This, as a diver, is my biggest fear! I literally semi-panic about this on every trip. My husband gets so mad because I always make him come up early.

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he moved to stadium dorms his senior year because nobody wanted to live there so he had the room to himself. i used to visit him and i'd go to the bathroom it was just 12 toliets in a row with no dividers or anything else. you just had to sit down and do your business with other people doing the same thing

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Yep. I was in East Stadium. No toilet stalls and no shower stalls. It was spartan, but all rooms in East were private at the time. The rooms designed for 3 students. No a/c. Not in the rooms, halls, or toilets. My room was on the top floor. Fifth floor. No elevators. But I loved living in East. Huge corner room all to myself and pretty much anything goes. Chicks in your room, no problem. Have at it.

As to no one wanting to live there, I vividly recall what was like a scene from a movie, went I went to request East. The lady with Student Housing said “oh, baby, you don’t want to be in East.” She then leans closer, looks left and right to see who might be listening, and says in lowered voice “the East is where the blacks live.” and then watches for my reaction. I stuck to wanting East, she shrugged as if to say “don’t say you were not warned.”.

Turns out East was roughly 70% black. There were many Omegas, with their branded arms. But they were cool to me. Even looked out for my GF of the time when she was harassed by some guys in the Quad one day. Their attitude, as relayed to me, was that if a white dude chose to live in East they must be cool and were not racist.

I don’t know that I was “cool”. Probably just naive. Or maybe I was “cool” and too cool for my own good because I got busted by campus police along with 2 other students for smoking a joint out at midfield on the eye of the tiger. At the time one could easily get into the stadium by slipping through a huge gap under one of the gates.

Tommy, I am guessing, was living in stadium just before I did. I don’t recall him being in East when I was. Maybe he was in West, South, or North. East was all single-rooms. So he would not have had a single as result of no one wanting to live there.