The Nation - News from Sept. 2, 1988

The former head of the Navy Rescue Swimmer School was found innocent of dereliction of duty in the panic-induced death of a 19-year-old recruit whose head was held under water by instructors. “The military system worked,” said Lt. Thomas Torchia, 32, who was removed as head of the school at the Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida after the March 2 death of Airman Recruit Lee Mirecki. Torchia was among six Navy men initially charged in the death of Mirecki. Mirecki died of a heart attack during a rescue exercise called “sharks and daisies,” in which instructors pretend to be drowning, grab for students and try to pull them under water.