A woman died Sunday after she went overboard and was hit by a boat propeller on the Ocklawaha River, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
The woman was on a Pontoon boat with at least eight other people around 1:30 p.m. when she went overboard and was hit by the propeller. She was pulled from the water but died en route to the hospital.
This comes after three back-to-back incidents on the water in Monroe County over the Fourth of July weekend and one fatal incident last week in Bay Harbor Islands involving a jet ski.
The investigation into Sunday’s incident is ongoing. Officials with FWC urged boaters to slow down quickly, throw out a floatation device, and turn their motors off completely when someone goes overboard.
The Ocklawaha River stretches across Marion and Putnam County lines and is almost two hours from Orlando where Leesfield & Partners has one of its offices. With over four decades representing injured clients in Miami, Orlando and Key West, Leesfield & Partners attorneys have considerable experience handling cases of injuries on the water.
A History of Representing Clients Injured on the Water
Leesfield & Partners attorneys have handled thousands of tragic cases that have left clients with life-altering injuries or have altered their families forever. One such case involves the needless death of a young woman who was a passenger on a boat that crashed into a concrete dock. The woman and other passengers were thrown into the water. It was later discovered that the driver of the boat was speeding and had been drinking the night of the woman’s death.
Attorneys with the firm secured a settlement amount of $1,325,000 for the woman’s family.
The firm also secured a substantial settlement for a minor whose leg had to be amputated due to negligent supervision of boating activities. Other boating-related personal injury cases handled by attorneys with the firm include an incident involving a boat and a jet ski resulting in a $935,750 award for clients, a $900,000 settlement amount involving a jet ski company and a tragic wrongful death case involving a boat tour. Attorneys secured a $575,000 settlement amount for the grieving family in that case.
In statistics from the FWC’s latest data reporting incidents on the water, Miami-Dade and Monroe Counties were among the top ten places with the highest injury rates in the state. The majority of these incidents happened in July and were due to either a crash with a fixed object or with another vessel.
Additionally, most of these accidents happened due to operator distraction and or inexperience on the water. Monroe County had the highest incident rate with 87 total accidents including three fatalities and 62 injuries. There were a total of 659 reportable accidents statewide in 2023, according to the data. Of the fatal accidents taking place in that year, 29% resulted from a crash with a fixed object and 25% happened after a person went overboard.