Tour boss tried to shift Qld death blame

A bid by a Queensland tour operator to shift the blame for a grandfather's snorkelling death to his grieving wife was the most offensive he'd heard in his time on the job, a coroner says. Eric Finlayson, 68, was pulled unconscious from waste-high water while snorkelling with Voyager Australia on the Great Barrier Reef in 2012.

An inquest into the man's death has heard Voyager director Peter Edwards said he thought Mr Finlayson's wife was excited to see the reef and may now harbour guilt about leaving her husband while he was snorkelling.

"She may actually feel she abandoned him," he said in the statement, excerpts of which were read to the Cairns court on Wednesday.

"And knows if she stayed with her husband and remained in the buddy pair ... the outcome might have been very different."

Coroner Kevin Priestly called the comments the most offensive he'd heard in his time on the job and likened Mr Edward's safety model to "swiss cheese".

"I didn't want to put a yardstick on it (safety practices) because frankly your client will not come out well," he said of Mr Edwards.

"It's the culture, it's the apparent lack of insight," he said.

The coroner heard numerous boat staff were not trained in first aid and there was confusion about who was supposed to be keeping a lookout off the back deck on the day Mr Finlayson died.

A woman who raised the alarm from her lookout post on the beach had just landed a job with the company and had been distracted by a conversation with two women before noticing Mr Finlayson in trouble, the court heard.

Counsel assisting Jesika Franco said Mr Edwards made numerous trips from where Mr Finlayson lay unresponsive to the boat to get medical equipment and call emergency services.

Ms Franco said the director had difficulty alerting authorities because emergency numbers listed on the boat had not been tested during drills.

Triple-zero was not the first number rung, she said.

Voyage Australia's barrister James Sheridan said Mr Edwards had commissioned an independent review of his operations.

He said Mr Finlayson had not any obvious signs of distress in the minutes before he died, though he did concede the actual event was not witnessed by anyone.

Ms Franco submitted the coroner should find the man drowned, with an underlying heart condition likely hindering his ability to overcome a cardiac event.

Mr Priestly will hand down his findings within a month.