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Diver struck
by boat awarded
$477,000

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By Rod Thompson
Big Island correspondent

NORTH KOHALA, Hawaii -- A Big Island man has won a court judgment totaling about $477,000 for injuries suffered when he was run over by a speeding powerboat while swimming off the North Kohala coast on Sept. 19, 1997.

Fisherman Dana Moss, 43, has continued to recover from numerous cuts and broken bones he suffered in the accident. He is considered 13 percent disabled, he said.

Before Moss filed suit against the boat operator, Kohala Kim Chee owner Donald Liu, he first had to fight off a criminal charge against him by the state, said his attorney Jay Friedheim. The state accused him of diving without a diving flag.

Originally from Oahu, Moss was doing Hawaiian-style fishing for octopus learned during 23 years in North Kohala. While floating on the surface, he lowers a weighted hook near an octopus until the animal crawls onto it, then snags the creature.

The day of the accident, Moss was wearing a wet suit with an 11-pound weight belt -- which probably saved his life.

A propeller gash was found in one of the weights on his hip. Propeller strikes gashed his head and buttocks and left broken bones sticking out of his left arm and hand, Friedheim said.

Moss recognized the boatman. "Donald, I'm hurt," he shouted. Liu picked him up and took him to a harbor where a helicopter carried him to the North Hawaii Community Hospital.

Federal judge Helen Gillmor ruled in Moss' favor this week. Liu's attorney, James Shin, declined to comment.