Cops: 2 dead, several others injured in brutal 24 hours on LI waters
Nassau County police inspect the motor boat that was impounded after it was involved in a collision with a personal watercraft that killed an 18-year-old woman. Credit: Jim Staubitser
Two women were killed in boat crashes Sunday in a brutal 24 hours on Long Island waters in which two other accidents led to non-life-threatening injuries, authorities said.
One woman, 18, was killed when the personal watercraft she was riding on collided with a 35-foot Fountain motor boat, Nassau County police said, at about 10:30 a.m. in the Middle Bay waterways, southeast of Parsonage Cove.
The other fatal crash took place at 6:28 p.m. Sunday, when a 50-foot Sea Ray with three people aboard struck a boat broadside as it drifted along with a married couple inside about a quarter mile off Cupsogue Beach at Cupsogue Beach County Park. The man jumped from the boat, and the woman was thrown into the water, Suffolk County police said.
The U.S. Coast Guard pulled the unidentified woman out and took her to the Coast Guard station where she was pronounced dead by a physician assistant from the Office of the Suffolk County Medical Examiner. The man was rescued by passing boaters and transported to Long Island Community Hospital in East Patchogue for treatment of minor injuries, police said.
Saturday evening, Suffolk police pulled two injured boaters from the water after a two-boat collision in Moriches Inlet, police said. Police responded to a call from the Coast Guard of a boat in distress near them at 7:15 p.m. and found a man and a woman in the water in Moriches Inlet. Police said the two jumped from their 16-foot center console HSX boat just before a 34-foot Cabo boat struck it.
Ted Felice, the operator of the HSX, and his passenger, Joan Grauer, were both pulled from the water. An ambulance brought Felice, 59, and Grauer, 55, both of Mastic, to Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries, police said.
Michael Flynn, 52, of Center Moriches, the operator of the Cabo, told officers sun glare prevented him from seeing the smaller boat, police said. He and his three passengers were not injured.
Baldwin firefighters at Baldwin Park, where they responded Sunday to a collision between a personal watercraft and a motor boat that killed an 18-year-old woman, police said. Credit: James Carbone
On Sunday afternoon, Suffolk police charged a man with boating while intoxicated following a capsizing that left one boater injured south of the Bay Shore Marina in Great South Bay. Javier Torres was operating a 19-foot center console Key West boat when a pump malfunctioned and the vessel began taking on water, police said. When Torres stopped the boat, it filled up with water and capsized, throwing Torres and six passengers into the bay.
Police pulled two victims out of the water. The remaining five were helped by a family tubing nearby until the U.S. Coast Guard arrived. One passenger, Omar Rivera-Nelson, 31, of Brentwood was taken to Southside Hospital in Bay Shore for non-life-threatening injuries. Torres, 48, of Bay Shore, was to be arraigned at First District Court in Central Islip Monday on a charge of boating while intoxicated, police said.
Nicole Fuller is Newsday's senior criminal justice reporter. She began working at Newsday in 2012 and previously covered local government.
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