The drowning death of a USA sailor in Navy SEAL training has been ruled a homicide, with a medical examiner determining that a SEAL instructor dunked the sailor in a swimming pool at least twice despite prohibitions against doing so.
Advertisement
Lovelace had been undergoing a training excercise in Coronado, Calif., called the Basic Underwater Demolition, where trainees tread water in the pool while wearing fatigues and boots.
The medical examiner described a video in which Lovelace was singled out for having difficulty in the pool while instructors splashed water and dunked him to simulate adverse conditions, the report stated.
Sources then told the news outlets Lovelace’s death was due to an instructor taking his training too far, and ignoring the trainee’s obvious distress in the water. The instructor directly involved in the drowning was removed from his training billet following Lovelace’s death and placed on administrative duties unrelated to training until the NCIS investigation concludes, the spokesman said.
He declined to identify the instructor or say how long he had been an instructor or a SEAL. He was taken to a hospital, where he later died.
However, an instructor dunked Lovelace despite that he was seen struggling, according to the autopsy report.
Navy Lt. Trevor Davids, a spokesman for Naval Special Warfare Command, said Wednesday that the case remains under investigation by NCIS.
Video surveillance obtained by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) and reviewed by a medical examiner investigator shows that when Lovelace struggled during a swimming exercise, one instructor on a platform pointed him out to a second one in the water. Eventually the instructor pulls him out of the water, and the exercise is stopped..
He also slipped underwater several times, and the same instructor did not help him for about five minutes, investigators said. Throughout this time period, the decedents head is seen to go under the water multiple times, and the instructor can be seen pulling him up multiple times.
Lovelace, who was from Crestview, Fla., was in his first week of the notoriously hard six-month course to become a SEAL. In the days that followed Lovelace’s death, more safety measures were added near the pool.
Lovelace, captain of his varsity baseball team, studied mechanical engineering at Faulkner State Community College before enlisting in November, according to his Navy bio.
In March 1988, John Joseph Tomlinson, 22, from Altoona, Pa., died of hypothermia near the end of a 5 1/2-mile ocean swim off Coronado in the 17th week of the 25-week training course.
Advertisement
Lovelace’s mother passed away previous year, but he is survived by his father, James Lovelace, an Air Force veteran who now works for defense contractor Lockheed Martin, and his two sisters.
