A day meant for celebration and family bonding ended in unimaginable heartbreak at a Texas scuba training facility. Twelve-year-old Dylan Harrison was on the cusp of achieving her scuba certification, a milestone that would have allowed her to join her father and grandfather in their shared passion for diving. Instead, a routine training session on August 16 at The Scuba Ranch in Terrell turned fatal, leaving a family shattered and a community demanding accountability for the promising young life lost.
The incident occurred during a class led by instructor Bill Armstrong. Dylan, along with eight other students, was on a training platform about 16 feet below the surface. After a reported miscommunication, the group was brought up and then sent back down, but during this process, Dylan vanished. The subsequent search ended in tragedy when her body was recovered from a depth of approximately 42 feet. The facility has since permanently suspended Armstrong, and the dive company, Scuba Toys, has been suspended pending the outcome of the investigation.
A disturbing account from a witness on the scene, Richard Thomas, owner of International Scuba, paints a picture of chaos and delayed response. Thomas, who was training other instructors that morning, described rushing to help when he realized a child was missing. He found Armstrong “bone dry” and, by his account, uncooperative. Thomas expressed frustration that the instructor seemed more focused on defending himself than on providing crucial information to aid the immediate search for the missing girl.
Further complicating the search for truth is the issue of missing evidence. According to reports, law enforcement failed to secure data from the dive computers worn by Dylan, the instructor, and the dive master. Alarmingly, one of these critical devices is now reportedly lost. This data could have provided a second-by-second account of depth, time, and movement, offering vital clues about Dylan’s final moments and the response of the professionals tasked with her safety.
Dylan, remembered by her family as “Dillie Picklez,” was a vibrant and artistic child who taught herself piano and loved singing karaoke. Her death is now the subject of an open criminal investigation by the Kaufman County Sheriff’s Office. As her family grieves, they are left with haunting questions about why their daughter was paired with another 12-year-old instead of an experienced diver and why the response to her disappearance seemed so tragically delayed, turning a day of adventure into a permanent nightmare.
