Doomed to Fail - Ep 163: Deep Blue Something - Tom & Eileen Lonergan

Episode Date: January 9, 2025

This is one to sit out if you are scared of the ocean! Today, Farz tells the story behind 'Open Water' and how Tom & Eileen Lonergan went diving at the Great Barrier Reef and never came back. A nightmare. Join our Founders Club on Patreon to get ad-free episodes for life! patreon.com/DoomedtoFailPodWe would love to hear from you! Please follow along! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail] 

In a matter of the people of the state of California versus Orenthal James Simpson, case number B.A.019. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. Taylor, we are up. We are alive. I'm standing. I'm at my standing desk. It is an exciting day. How are you? Good. I'm sitting. I'm sitting on my couch. I'm wrapped in a blanket because it's very windy.

And this blanket just came out of the dryer. So I was like, one in Rome. sit under a warm blanket. You are cozed up. Cozy. And I'm making a blanket while I'm sitting in this warm blanket. I mean, I'm not saying anything negative about you. But I think me and you are two people who becoming older suits us more than being young.

Absolutely. I mean, I was really good at being young, but I feel like I'm not angry about getting old. Yeah, yeah. You know? More power to us. Yeah, but good for us. Not everybody gets to be old. Amen.

Do you want to go to intro us? Yes. Hello, everyone. Welcome to doomed to fail. Where the podcast that brings you history is most notorious failures, epic disasters, interesting stories, whatever. I'm Taylor, joined by Fars. Fars, how are you?

Side standing and wearing your glasses. I'm just getting used to wearing these things. You know, it's funny because you don't, realize your vision is anything is off until you wear glasses and the way i describe it is like it just turns everything into 4k yeah i know i need them i think i need bifocals honestly these are bifocals yeah that's what i need um i'm gonna go i'm going on thursday to the eye doctor but in the past like six months my eyes has got a lot worse but i mean i haven't needed them until now it's bound to happen so yeah i think i'll be okay i think miles might need them so

Miles and I are going to go on Thursday. But yeah, I think it's going to be like, I think Miles might be like, what the hell, mom? Everything's in 4k now. Like you said. Like, I think it might be like, I've needed these for a long time. You're a terrible mother. But we'll see what happens. The definitely do the, so these originally, I got like regular.

Like, I just had one lens in it. And it was for reading close. And then I would wear them at a restaurant to read like the menu. Then the server would come over. And I couldn't see him. It was blurred. And then I'd like have to take them off and then put them back on. Yeah.

You got to definitely do the bifocals. That's what I'm going to do. I'm sure that's what they're going to tell me that I need, and I'm sure that's what I'll do. Cool. So I'm going to tell us a story today. Are you excited? I am. Okay.

So I'm going to cover a couple. Their name is Tom and Eileen Lonrigan. And I bet you that nobody knows their name, but everybody probably knows their story. Do you know their name? I don't. Lonergan does not sound familiar. you're going to know their story um so our story starts in 1987 when eileen haines at that time was a freshman attending louisiana state university when she met a 22 year old thomas

lonergan after dating briefly they would get married on june 24th of 1988 like super briefly like a year yeah yeah uh shortly after that they would enlist in the peace court and they served as volunteers for community development projects in Fiji. I could not find a single instance or record or report of these people being employed at all, which makes me wonder why did they waste time in college. But they, as far as I can tell, they basically were just like, they struck me as just free spirits where like, whatever, I'll just eat whatever I find. And then I'll go work somewhere for a weekend. and that'll be enough money to, like, go to my next place.

Like, they're just like that type of couple, you know? Yeah, like anyone who thinks that a van life is cool. Yeah. It's not your living in a van. I know, I wrote down, thank Christopher McCanness, not jet setting, not like parasolting. They like to travel, but not the way humans like to travel. Indeed. So in 1998, they were on the final leg of their backpacking trip.

There was somewhere around 30 years. So this would have been when Tom was 30. and Eileen was 28. So this is 1998 during the final leg of a backpacking trip and they were in Queensland,

Australia, and the thing that every one of the 90s wanted to do while they were in Queensland was to go to see the Great Barrier Reef. I remember this time period,

Taylor, because my parents got me the first CD-ROM version of like the Britannica, whatever. Yeah, yeah, and like the cover art for all of it was Coral Reese. It's like, this isn't real. This can't really exist. Isn't it

crazy? Because like we had like very limited access to like the world's knowledge. And you didn't know those stuff really existed. And then I guess the world found it out and became a big deal. Well, how lucky are we that we get to live in the same time as the Great Barrier Reef before it disappears? I'm going to talk about that a little bit. Yeah. So in 1981, the Great Barrier Reef was established as a world heritage site. Within a decade or so, scientists would sound the alarms and things like global warming were having an effect on the reef, specifically El Nino, if you recall, El Nino. That occurred in 1980. Was it like one storm?

Well, it's a storm that happens when certain conditions are met, so it can happen again. But the one that happened in 1998 resulted in, like, mass coral bleaching. So what ended up happening was a storm passed right over it, and it was so ferocious that it pulled all the algae that lives on the coral. of the coral, which results in coral bleaching. So. And coral bleaching means they're dead. It's just like a skeleton. They're dead. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So that basically, the long and short is that the whole world basically learned with the great barrier reef was and wasn't obsessed with it. Because I remember this so vividly.

It's so great. So it's so old that I remember this incredibly vividly. So in 1998, tourism in this area was incredibly high. About 1.6 million people. that year visited the reef and generated about $1 billion worth of income for the local economy. So it was like a big, big deal. There were estimates that approximately 600 permitted operators were authorized by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority to operate around 1,500 vessels to take people in and out, scuba diving, doing trip session, daily trips and whatever, like that kind of stuff. I'm like literally getting nervous while you're talking because I feel like I know what's going to happen and I kind of want to throw up. Good. Well, I'm glad I can still get to you. Okay, keep going.

So on January 25th, 1998, Tom and Eileen booked a round-trip bus ride from a hostel they were staying at, which was 40 minutes away, to the coast where this specific dive company was, called the Outer Edge Dive Company. And they were going to go scuba diving at three different dive sites. They were going to start at St. Crispin's and end in Fish City, which. sounds really fun that's cute uh the boat they were on carried a group of 26 passengers including the loner gams about 38 miles northeast of their location in queensland deep into the great barrier reef they would conduct two dives without a hitch so they would do a dive then they would get everybody on the boat they would go to a different dive site they do a dive carry around the boat go to the next site so on and so forth so they're on the third dive site

by 3 p.m. local time and literally i'm going to amazon right now to buy more jure because I just like reminds you that I need it because I'm getting sweaty. Continue. And if any of you all need deodorant, please go on Amazon and shop there as well. Yeah. So they were at the third dive site at 3 p.m. local time. And then around 3.30 is when the dive vessel turned on its engines and started kind of making preparations to head back to shore. It's worth noting that this is also a pretty big tell to anyone who's in the water because

when the engines run on a boat sound travels pretty far in water and in theory you should be able to hear the ship or the boat running its engines. In this case a ship idled for about 15 minutes before it had back into sea. The safety practices for this day were that any time a passenger

went into or out of the water they were supposed to log in or log out by checking their names on or off of the list. They end up going back to shore with all 24 passengers. you see the problem I know you said 26

So that's actually the end of the story So that is the end of the Lonerganz story But we'll continue from there So what ended up happening after this Was that day That was the last day trip They were going to have

The crew of this dive company They reached shore They noticed that after all the pastures had left There were shoes and backpacks still on the vessel And for some reason, they didn't think this was a big deal. They basically were like, somebody forgot it. They took this stuff, put in their office. Like somebody will come back and claim this stuff later.

Oh, my God. The crew was then approached by the driver of the bus company. The couple had hired to take them back their hostel. And the driver was like, hey, where are these people? And apparently the crew was super dismissive saying, hey, they probably just ran off with somebody else. Like, you know, this is what you do. Like when you're backpackers, your travelers, you see people, you go do stuff. Two days after the diving trip, employees decided, let's see what's in these backpacks

that are just sitting here in this office. And they found passports, money. Oh, my God. Travel arrangements, itineraries, like things that you don't leave behind casually. Yeah, no, of course. This is a sign to always be the best person on the tour and ask a lot of questions. so that everyone knows that you are there. Make high contact,

be BFF for the tour guide. Be the best person on the tour. I'm the best person. This is so interesting. I have some extra questions for you. This sounds like something I would say to myself seriously. Yeah. So authorities were sort of notified immediately.

So essentially, the team, this dive company, realized something terrible is going on. Right. Oh, shit. They had the hostile information. They called the hospital information. called the hostel and the hostel operators said we haven't seen this couple since they left to come on your dive and they're like oh my god apparently the hostel owner is the one who actually

called the authorities um and once the authorities were called the coast guard other ships in the area all kind of descended into the area this would be about 56 hours or so after they had ended the water so we're hour 56 so we're on the third solid third day and eventually after about four or five days the search was called off because they're like scientifically it is impossible for any human being to have survived out there this long there's no reason to keep going

I mean if they can't find like airplanes in the ocean they can't find two people you know yeah yeah well the good the good news is that this part of the ocean isn't super deep and also it's well trafficked right like you're the great

barrier reef there's 1500 vessels in and out of the area How big is the Great Barrier Reef? I don't know. Look at it up some one email as we don't know. We don't know. And there's no way that we could find this out. You'd have to pull up your Britannica CD-ROM.

Get that CD-ROM going. So eventually some items belonging to them would be discovered or wash ash ashore. So fins, diving equipment, gear, and a diving slate was actually found. And a diving slate is like an oil pen with like a little thing that you could write on. And it's a way to communicate with some. while you're underwater in a diving slate read to anyone who can help us we have been abandoned on agent court reef by mv outer edge 25 jan 98 3 p.m please help us come to rescue us before we die help and you know some people thought this could be a hoax it might not really be theirs

maybe somebody just planted it but apparently they did a bunch of testing on the kind of algae that was growing on it how long that algae would have taken to grow on it like the kind of the equipment that was being used they determined that yeah this is almost certainly theirs so and um that's kind of it in terms of we have no idea what really happened them the bodies were never actually discovered but we have theories so there's three theories here theory number one that is the most probable would be simple dehydration and exposure to the elements so they obviously had no provisions to stay to sustain themselves while they're adrift they had no you know food or water or anything along those lines under the best conditions a human body can go five to seven days before dying of dehydration so you could go that long without drinking but the conditions under which you could survive

or the environment has to be super cold as in no sweating so taylor you would be dead immediately with no i'd be sweating immediately because that'd be fucking terrified and and on top of that you'd have to be exerting zero force and in that situation you could survive that amount of time which is the amount of time they basically search for them for really we're on day eight like it is physically impossible for anybody to be alive but these guys are in the southern hemisphere during the winter or sorry during their summer in the ambient temperature would have been 73 to 91 degrees with a humidity of 70 to 80 degrees 80% average so they would have been suffering dehydration like pretty pretty quickly.

Because it was warm. Because it was warm. Yeah. Yeah. And they were also in full dive gear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which they actually took off, at least Eileen took off her dive gear. And there's a bunch of theories as to why she could have done this.

It could have been delirium. But it also could have been, she was like, I want to die. Like, I just want to like just take me, you know. The other theory, which could also be possible, has to do with sharks. So the Great Barrier Reef is home to two sharks. you do not want to cross pass with. One is the tiger and the other is the white tip shark. So tiger sharks are like pretty much the most dangerous sharks when it comes to humans.

It's sort of tied with a great white shark and it's kind of hard to calculate and determine which one is actually the single most dangerous. The reason being tiger sharks apparently attack humans to eat them. like they're not being ambiguous about what they're doing trying to attack you they want they want to they're not like protecting their young or like whatever they're just like you look delicious exactly so great whites whenever a human gets bit by a great white generally speaking they're trying to test to see if we're edible or not and kind of feel like the great white thing is overplayed because of the dress well great whites actually kill more people than any other shark so that's true but it's it's you know it's a little bit different

Like, you know, if you get bit by a great white, like, you could still technically survive because it's not there to eat you. It's there to test whether it can eat you. And then usually they don't because we're not fat enough. They need fatty things to eat. So, like, they go after seals and stuff. But humans generally don't have enough fat for them to be satisfied with it. But a tiger shark was so they're just to eat you. So that's so funny because I just can imagine, like, getting bit by a great way and being like, he thinks I'm skinny.

That's a little compliment that little shark gave you. he thinks up thin and then the other part is white tips so white tips will also attack humans they're most famous for attacking plane crash survivors and shipwreck survivors

so that's where you'll encounter them most frequently and so you could you can run into that but the these two these two theories this is what the corner ultimately determined If you were to look up the report on their cause of death,

it's possible death due to dehydration and or shark attack is what it would say. There's a stupid theory, which is that they fake their death. And that is mostly based on what they found of Thomas's writings later on because they had his like poetry and his backpack. he had written about wanting to die because he'd seen what he would say is he was ready to die because he's seen

everything that's beautiful in this world and it's time to go but that just sounds like hippie stuff like that just sounds like a stupid hippie you know like it's just like woozy woo woo woo like I don't know

there's also no evidence that they would have done this intentionally some have pointed out to the fact that hey you know what it is it's kind of like what we were talking about a little bit earlier before you started recording

this podcast. When people say shit once it's out there into the ether it's so easy to find facts for and against that thing. Right? It's out there. And so people will say that hey, there was these pontoons that were stationed all around the Great Barrier Reefs. The reason was

that with all these 1,500 vessels that are coming and going from the Great Barrier Reefs, they don't want to go park in the reef because it could be dangerous to the reef. So they have these pontoons that are positioned, And you just pull up the pontoon. Then you have one anchor point that never moves because they're permanent pontoons. Uh-huh.

And so people on the internet are like, well, they probably killed themselves because they could have found one of these pontoons. If you're in the middle of the ocean, it's dark, you're hungry, you're thirsty, you're scared. There are sharks nibbling at your roots. There's sharks probably, like, at the very least sharks hitting you, hitting your legs underneath you. And then what are you supposed to do? Look off, look off in the distance and see. if you notice, like, a barge, and maybe that barge is one that you can go, like, you wouldn't think they have to be, I mean, I can't, I don't think I could tread water for five days, right?

You probably, no, no, like, they probably retired. Well, you probably wouldn't be able to tread water for like a day. Right, like you have to sleep. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, at least my perspective on this, is like, even if there were pontoons, like, 500 feet away which we know there wasn't but if there was pontoons even that close to them can you really blame someone for not finding it like i mean yeah i also imagine like you're moving

so much too you know like up and down on a wave that like even if it's i don't know like even like we went to the beach in puerto rico and like i jumped into a couple waves one of them knocked me over like it was like fun but that night like several hours later when i went to bed and close my eyes. I could feel the ocean moving, you know? Like, it would, it, it, it, it, you would be just, I don't know. I've done closed masks snorkeling before in like an area of Florida where it's like, you know, you can go touch the bottom. Like, it's not that big of a deal. And I remember thinking of myself when I did that, that I was shocked at how far away the boat was from where I thought it was. I like, yeah, look up and be like, oh, the boat's going to be

right above me. And it's like, oh, my God. I got like swim quite a ways to get to the boat. Yeah, you move so quickly without even knowing, even like when you're, even when you're like 20 feet out in the water and all of a sudden you look up and like your umbrella is further away that you thought it was. You know, like that happens all the time too. Yeah. So authorities in this case, they obviously investigated the Outer Edge Dive Company and it was revealed that one, they didn't use the log in log out method consistently. It was kind of like a choose your own adventure situation with the crew that was responsible for checking in pastures on that given day. but they also did have a head count method which is exactly what it sounds like

and what they found was they double counted a couple that was already on the boat so that's what they did in the movie open water open water that's also what they did in Home Alone that's how Kevin got left behind that's how in part two or one part two one okay so

the folks the crew actually thought they had 26 pastures on board like they weren't like so he'll have had, like leaving these people out there. There's a guy, the owner of the vessel and the owner of the company, this guy named Jeffrey Nairn, who he was the captain that day as well, and he was actually charged with manslaughter or what they call unlawful killing in Australia. He was acquitted of these charges because his defense argued that keeping counts up to date

was a crew responsibility and it would just get passed around of the different members of the team. Like the captain's not responsible for everything that happens on the boat. I mean, yes. Yes, he is. I know, but in this case, the argument was, in this case, well, yeah, the argument was that in this case, you can't hold him responsible because he wasn't actually responsible for doing the activity of counting heads. Dumb, he's responsible for making sure the people who do it are responsible. That's why you are the boss.

Well, the other reason why he wasn't found guilty was because, like, I don't know if he should go to jail, but I also feel like the captain is nothing but the boss of the ship. Yeah, yeah. Well, so here's the other piece of it. So part of your accountability in any industry has to do with what the reasonable standards for your industry are, right? Like if you're doing, like, I'm making stuff up. But if the reasonable standards to be like an Uber driver is to take 100 hours of Uber driving courses and you did 100 hours, but then you killed someone, then you look to like, hey, like you did all the things you were supposed to do. And then this thing was outside of like the industry standards. And that was the case.

In this situation, there are so many dive companies operating here. And they all had the same kind of check-in, check-out, headcount method. And they're like, well, he did what the industry expected him to do. It just didn't work this time. It just didn't work that one time. Yeah. I know I always tell people at work, like, we're not brain surgeons. We can fix anything.

You know, like, if anyone messes up, like, we can always fix it. It's not like we can kill someone. But, like, jobs like that were like, like, Like being a lifeguard or like those things, you're like, if I fucked up, someone could die. Yeah. Yeah. That's scary. In this situation, a fine was levied against Outer Edge Dive Company and then the company had to go under.

And it does not exist anymore. Which, good, probably. Did everybody else get better at it? They did institute new standards for the rest of the dive companies that are in the area. I don't recall exactly what that is, but it's probably something along the lines of just Pinky promise us that you're counting your passengers. Yeah, like for real this time. For real this time. And I also feel like everybody would be a better passenger because they want to do that saying, like, don't you fucking leave me?

Just got to do the Taylor method, which is ask questions, be as annoying as possible. I'm following all the rules. You know what? I'm going to go diving. Let me leave my wedding ring with you and you make sure to give it back to me when I get out on the boat after. I kind of love that. I mean, I don't know, though. The passport didn't work for these guys.

I know, that's true. I'm going to write my name on your hand. You know what? I brought my Sharpie. I'm going to write my name on your hand. And it says, don't forget Taylor. And then I'll be. I also think Taylor, like, we're fortunate that we're kind of distinct looking people.

Like, I don't, we don't look a lot. Like, well, I don't know. I guess you look a little bit like Christina Ricci. But like, I don't really look like anybody. I said, well, I'm always, this is stupid. But like, when we do like, you do like an AI picture of someone, mine never look like me. and I'm like, I'm just so average, like, you can't make it look like me. And Juan, my husband was like, maybe you're just so above average that no one can even

figure it out in AI. I was like, that's very nice. But, like, it's, I just don't have the most average face ever that, like, whenever I do a little, like, emoji, it's always just like, oh, there's a white girl with brown hair. I just said you look distinct. I know. Thank you. I'm saying I heard that from you and Juan this this week, and I feel better because I was

feeling bad about myself. There you go. And now, and all you're, all you need now is a compliment is for that. that little great white shark bite and then you'll be good you know what you know what we could do is we could use those stickers that have yours and mine faces on them and bring them and then like I'll cross you out if you're not with me so I'll be like here's a picture of me and this is my friend for us but he's not here so I'm going to cross him out me I'm the person that you to make sure gets off this mountain or on this boat or blah blah out of this cave thank you

please please we need the co-host so yeah that's the story their bodies were never found And they made a movie about it You mentioned the name in the movie It's called Open Water came out I think in 2003, 2004, something like that I was also thinking about Open Water 2 Have you seen that one? I haven't seen either

Okay, so Open Water is like really scary It's exactly what you're saying Like, you know, they like Or they are out there a couple of days or whatever And there's like sharks and stuff And eventually I think that they just like So come They just like let themselves get it go under

But Open Water 2 is one where I always think about this when I'm on a boat It's because it was like kind of a big boat and it's like a group of friends and a baby and they're all kind of like hanging out and the baby, one of the ladies puts the baby to sleep and she's standing on the edge of the boat

and a guy like tackles her and brings her into the water. So they're all laughing and they're all in the water. It's super fun, but they never put the ladder down and they can't get back on the boat. And the baby's crying

and they just like, it's like a really lot. I don't think I've watched the whole thing because I got grossed out or I Wikipedia did or something, but the whole point is they jump off the boat and they can't get back on it. I'd never thought of that. Yeah, if you jump off a boat, how do you get back on?

You got to have a ladder out, because you can't climb up at a boat. So what do they do? I can't remember up at the end. So I actually thought about watching open water for this, but I realized, like, it's all fake because we never found their bodies. We have no idea what happened in them. I mean, I feel like it's a pretty good guess. They definitely do the, like, they show the counting thing, and then, like, they're, like, spend a little bit of time being like, oh, they'll come back for us, you know? they probably for at least a couple hours were like i'm sure they're on their way you know

god when you lose that hope that's going to be the worst part because in the beginning you're like there's literally no way they're going to wait two days before they open up our backpacks you know or even like a minute after they realize the backpacks were there but yeah um okay open one or two sounds fascinating though okay yeah um cool well that's my storyteller you got anything for us i do actually so it's Wednesday today, but we released our episode on polio on Monday. And then I released an episode with my dad today. Did you listen to it?

I didn't listen to it, actually. And I was going to say that we probably should wait to release this on like Thursday. Sure, whatever. But my family liked it, so that was cute. But Kincaid, my brother, clarified some stuff that we said about chickenpox and shingles. So

if you have had chickenpox as a kid, then you can get shingles as an adult. If you did not have chicken pox, you cannot get shingles. But if you have a chicken packs vaccine, you have that tiny chance of getting shingles. So if you're like never exposed to chicken packs and you get it as an adult, I think it's worse when you're older, but it's not shingles. It's different. It's chicken pox. So once you've had chicken packs, you are susceptible to getting shingles. But you can't get

the shingles vaccine until you're 50. Can you get shingles before you're 50? Yes. But you can't get the vaccine until you're 50 but then then you're vaccinated from all of it because then I remember I had the chicken pox when I was little for sure like I remember it the parents remember it but when I was pregnant with miles they did a blood test and they're like oh you need the chickenpox vaccine because you're not immune and I was like okay I'll take it whatever but um the immunity didn't last sorry you said that so the kids don't have vaccines for chickenpox they just have to get it no no they have that vaccine now. They do. Okay. But like my brothers, so there's five kids in my family. I'm the

oldest. Decker's 10 years younger than me. Kincaid's 12 years younger than me. And by the time Decker and Kincaid were born, they got the vaccine. But Blair, Stratton and I all got chickenpox. Got it. Got it. You know, lucky them. We're lucky. Yes. We went the, the tough route. I would say that oatmeal bath. It's a lot. Yeah, I got a bike. I got one of those huffies that has a radio on it. Uh-huh. it was like the coolest thing back then nobody had that cute yeah I love that for you very stranger very stranger things of you um sweet anything else to report no that's it we're growing on TikTok because I'm doing like five TikToks a day because I'm going over all of our

episodes I don't know if you noticed and then I'm slowly I'm slowly I'm not either but we are and so I'm slowly like reposting our tech tax onto Instagram or whatever but I'm getting some engagement over there people have been like oh cool I'm going to download it it, whatever. So I'm just kind of recapping all of our episodes. It's going to take me with my whole life. It's my episode seven. There's just so many of them. But just to get a little bit more out there. So I'm doing that. And if you have any suggestions or ideas, we've got a couple of suggestions in on Instagram. So thank you for that, friends. And let us know, doomed to fail pod at gmail.com and doomed to fill a pod on all the socials.

Sweet. I'll go ahead and cut things off. Thank you, Taylor. Thank you. Thank you.