At least four people were rescued from a sinking boat off the coast of Marathon, Florida, Sunday.
Th incident happened about 11 miles off the coast around 5 p.m. when a distress signal reached the U.S. Coast Guard. A crew was sent out to find the 27-foot, sinking vessel and its four passengers.
Additional information including what caused the boat to sink or whether anyone was injured were not immediately available Monday.
A North Carolina woman was killed, three others were injured and one man faces charges following a boat crash in the Florida Keys Friday.
A 21-foot motorboat carrying four people hit an anchored 34-foot sailboat Friday around 8 p.m. in Florida Bay off mile marker 96 in Key Largo, according to reporting from the Miami Herald. All four people aboard the motorboat were ejected following the crash. Three people were rescued from the water with injuries. The body of 24-year-old Sydney Cole was pulled from the water.
At least one of the three injured, Lillian Cole, 58, of Oakland Park, was airlifted to a Miami-Dade County hospital in critical condition. The boat was being operated by Guy Erdman, 61, also of Oakland Park, the night of the crash, according to the Herald. No charges have been filed against him as of Monday.
Several bills, including one to impose stricter penalties on boaters involved in crashes, have been proposed in the Florida House and Senate ahead of the 2025 start to the legislative session in March; here’s what you should know.
The bill referencing the penalties was proposed by Sen. Ileana Garcia, a Republican in Miami, and would classify fleeing a fatal boat crash as a first-degree felony, meaning this charge could carry a sentence of up to 30 years in prison, if convicted. Additional penalties can include a $10,000 fine. If a person who is found guilty of this crime was also found to have bene under the influence at the time of the crash, then a mandatory, minimum sentence of four years would be applied.
This bill, SB 58, was filed in response to the 2022 Biscayne Bay boat crash that killed one high school student on board and permanently injured another. The student killed in that incident was 17-year-old Luciana Fernandez who was on the boat being operated by George Pino, a local real-estate developer. Pino was first charged with three misdemeanor charges of careless boating, but those charges were changed to vessel homicide after a witness came forward this year with new evidence in the case.
Authorities confirmed over the weekend that the human head that washed ashore on Key Biscayne belonged to a teen who went missing off Miami Beach a week before after being caught in a rip current.
Victor Enrique Castaneda Jr., 19, was swimming with his sister off South Pointe Beach on Nov. 9 around 6 p.m. when the two were caught up in a rip current. They yelled for help and passersby were able to rescue Castaneda’s sister, but he seemed to vanish in the water, according to reporting from The Miami Herald. His older sister, Jessica Castaneda, told reporters that her brother pushed their younger sister toward shore in an effort to save her as the pair struggled against the currents.
On Nov. 12, a human head washed up on the beach in front of Oceansound Key Colony II condominium at 251 Crandon Blvd on Key Biscayne. The remains were found by a beach maintenance worker before 8:40 a.m.
A person has died and two others remain hospitalized after a boat overturned in Key Largo Saturday, marking at least the second boat crash in the Florida Keys in just over a week, officials say.
Saturday’s crash happened before 10:30 a.m. when a 34-foot Nor-Tech carrying three people turned sharply, ejecting all three passengers into the water.
The three were rescued from the water by passersby and were later airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center.
At least four people were injured and one other died after they were ejected from a boat that crashed into a Key West sandbar Thursday afternoon, authorities told reporters with The Miami Herald.
The crash happened around 4 p.m. when a 39-foot Deep Impact vessel carrying at least eight people crashed into a sand bar in North Key West Harbor. Five people were catapulted into the water, officials said, and were taken to the hospital where one person died from their injuries.
Additional details were not immediately available Friday morning.
Nearly three months have passed since a spearfisherman was killed by a passing boater over the July Fourth Weekend. Recently, authorities have charged that boater in the man’s death.
Palmer Reid Long Jr., 72, of Placida, Florida, was charged on Sept. 23, with vessel homicide after police say he didn’t slow down despite there being visible divers-down flags in the area. Vessel homicide is a second-degree felony and a conviction could mean up to 15 years in prison.
The incident happened on July 5, killing spearfisherman, Israel “Kiko” Boza, 56, of Hialeah, according to reporting from local news outlets. That same weekend, three separate incidents on the water in the Florida Keys injured about eight people, including a 12-year-old.
Divers broke records this year in an annual competition to remove invasive lionfish from Florida waters, according to a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission press release.
The 2024 Lionfish Season concluded with a record-breaking 31,773 species being pulled from the water. Just under 300 divers went on over 700 trips throughout the state to retrieve the animals that are dangerous to native fish and coral reefs.
One lionfish can reduce a native reef fish population by over 70%. They also present a risk to humans with their venomous spines which can cause painful stings. In 2022, over 25,000 lionfish were removed from Florida waters in FWC’s annual, summer-long challenge, which began in 2016.
About eight people were injured and one person died in three separate incidents in the Florida Keys over the holiday weekend, according to local officials.
The latest of the three incidents happened around 2 a.m. Monday when a Contender boat crashed into the South Pine Channel Bridge, a bridge connecting Middle Torch Key and Ramrod Key in the Lower Keys. At least seven people were injured in the crash including a child. The child and two others were transported via air ambulance while four others were taken to local hospitals. Monroe County Fire Rescue officials told The Miami Herald that the boat was going at a high rate of speed when it crashed.
The second incident took place Saturday around noon in Key West and involved at least one person on a jet ski who was transported to the hospital by helicopter. Additional details, including how the incident happened or whether another watercraft was involved, were not immediately available Monday.
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