The Nation - News from Aug. 28, 1988

The former head of Navy rescue-swimmer training testified that he never permitted use of force to make unwilling students get into the swimming pool for drills. The testimony came in the court-martial of Lt. Thomas A. Torchia, charged with dereliction of duty for allegedly permitting instructors to push a panic-stricken recruit back into a pool at Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida and hold his head under water. Airman Recruit Lee Mirecki, 19, of Appleton, Wis., had a heart attack and drowned during the March 2 class, pathologists have said. “I never authorized a person to be placed back in the pool,” said Cmdr. Allan P. Nesbitt III, Torchia’s predecessor and the first witness called. But he said regulations at the time allowed instructors to pull tired students away from the walls of the pool.