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.
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.
A woman died Tuesday morning while scuba diving with a commercial scuba vessel in the Florida Keys, according to reporting from the Miami Herald.
The 56-year-old woman, identified at Andreas Shultz of Tallahassee, was diving at Molasses Reef off Key Lago. Just before 10 a.m., she was found unconscious in the water and was rushed to shore.
Shultz died enroute to shore while others on the boat performed CPR, according to local reporting.
A tractor-trailer driver who faces felony charges in the August 2023 crash in Nebraska that killed a woman and her young son, 8, is now being accused of using Snapchat as he crashed, according to reporting from the Miami Herald.
Justin Zoerb, 22, was charged with two counts of motor vehicle homicide and one count of reckless driving following the Clay County, Nebraska, crash on Aug. 9, 2023.
The crash happened around 4 p.m., killing 8-year-old Ryker Schlichtman and Nicole Pavelka, 30. Three other children in the family were hospitalized for their injuries but lived.
A woman killed as the result of a tragic Nov. 7 boat crash in Key West has been identified by authorities as a 28-year-old Hialeah woman.
Stephanie Rodriguez, the woman killed in the incident, was among several people who were ejected into the water after the driver of a 39-foot Deep Impact, four-engine vessel made a sharp right turn as it traveled through the Calda Channel north of Key West. The passengers were rushed to the hospital for treatment and Rodriguez died from her injuries.
That day, over 100 boats were in the area participating in the Key West Poker Run, a 32-year tradition of racing on the water put on by the Florida Powerboat Club. The operator of the vessel involved in the crash is a member of the Florida Powerboat Club and was participating in the annual run from Miami to Key West this week to celebrate the Race World Offshore World Championship speedboat races, according to reporting from The Miami Herald.
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.
November has remained busy for Leesfield & Partners in Key West events.
Over the weekend in the Keys, Leesfield & Partners attorneys Justin B. Shapiro, Carlos A. Fabano and Evan Robinson attended the career celebration and retirement party for 16th Judicial Circuit Judge Luis Garcia.
Leesfield & Partners at dinner on Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024, honoring Judge Luis Garcia.
At least one person has died following a Sunday morning crash with a 42-foot boat and a jet ski, officials say.
Officers with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission responded to calls of a crash at around 8:30 a.m. near the Broad Causeway in Bay Harbor Islands, according to reporting from The Miami Herald.
The man on the jet ski was pulled from the water by witnesses on a separate boat and was taken to shore. The man later died.
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