How Gina Lieneck survived the grief of daughter Brianna's death to change boater safety laws

On an August evening in 2005, the Lieneck family boat crept through the Great South Bay toward the dock in Bay Shore after a trip to Fire Island. The family — Frank and Gina, along with their daughters Brianna, 11, and Danyelle, 13 — were headed home to Deer Park, where they looked forward to more lazy days of summer fun before the girls returned to school.

Then, the crash happened.

"A boat came out of nowhere, went up and over the top of my boat, ripped the 1,200-pound canopy off and collapsed on my daughter," Gina Lieneck recalled with her husband at their home in St. James, where they now live.

Brianna, 11, died. Frank and Gina sustained catastrophic injuries that affect them to this day. Danyelle, and her 13-year-old friend, had minor injuries. 

Gina related the sequence of events in an interview with Newsday with the ease of someone who has retold and relived the story of that tragic night again and again. She’s relayed it to students in boating safety classes and to crowds at news conferences urging caution on the water. And she pointedly recounted those details to the State Legislature as she lobbied for stricter boating safety standards — all while confronting industry opposition, hesitant politicians and some who feared more requirements on the water. 

But no matter how many times Gina has recapped the night Brianna died, the pain never dulls and the tears still flow freely.

"I don’t remember much. I just remember looking down and my daughter was holding Brianna in her arms," Gina, 56, recalled, her voice breaking.

Frank, 59, also remembers little.

"They came up from our back rear harness so we never saw them," he said. "I didn’t see them until the boat was on top of me. That’s the last thing I remember is lifting my hands up, yelling to look out."

More than 20 summers later, Gina and Frank shared memories of the daughter they lost and how their injuries continue to torment them. And they recounted how Gina channeled her anguish into a determined, successful push to enact stricter boating safety standards across the state.

Brianna's Law, which was approved in 2019 and took full effect last year, requires all motorized water vessel operators 10 and older to complete an eight-hour safety class.

From 2020 to 2025, the number of boating accidents on Long Island ranged from 39 to 104, state data shows. 

Gina said she is proud to keep her daughter's memory alive. 

And she says she's not finished with her fight, as the former political neophyte plans to target drunken boaters in the next legislative cycle. 

"This has pushed me to become stronger," she said. "At times I feel unstoppable."

A fragile recovery

After the crash, with her adrenaline pumping, Danyelle, who along with a friend was banged up but not seriously injured, moved the canopy off Brianna, screaming for help. Danyelle, who had taken a CPR course, tried to revive her.

The family would learn that Brianna suffered blunt force trauma to the head from the impact, breaking her neck and crushing her organs, Gina said.

"I always thought that boat was big enough — that nothing bad could ever happen on it," Frank said.

Unable to save her sister, Danyelle tended to her parents, wrapping her mom’s nearly severed arm in a towel before turning her attention to her father, who took the brunt of the impact to his head.

"That’s when the horror really began," Gina said of the hours and days after the crash. Brianna had died, and Gina and Frank were in critical condition. "My daughter didn’t know if she was going to lose her entire family."

Danyelle, 35, doesn’t talk about the crash, her mother said, and declined to be interviewed. She and her husband, Anthony, and their children, Maverick, 2, and Noelle, 8 months, live with Frank and Gina at their home in St. James.

"I can’t even imagine what she went through," Gina said. "I don’t even know if I would have been able to do what she did."

At the hospital, Gina learned that one of her arms was cut to the bone. She had two orbital fractures and a skull fracture, as well as broken ribs. Every bone in Frank’s face was broken, and his mouth had to be wired shut for more than a month, Gina said. Both suffered brain trauma.

The day after the crash, Gina kept inquiring about Brianna and was given vague answers. 

"I kept asking and asking and a doctor walked in and said, ‘You keep asking about this Brianna. She’s dead,’ " Gina recalled. "That’s how I was told my daughter was gone."

The couple’s health was so unstable they weren't able to hold a funeral service until nearly a month after Brianna died.

During that time, Frank was in and out of a medically induced coma. Each time he woke, he would ask about Brianna.

"We had to tell him that she was gone," Gina said.

Frank was still so fragile, doctors told him he could not be jostled while at Brianna’s wake: In his greatest moment of mourning, he could not experience the comfort of an embrace.

The day after the funeral, Frank underwent brain surgery for 12 hours. It would be the first of six surgeries he has had on his face and brain, along with 188 spinal taps.

The couple experienced "not only the stress of burying" Brianna, Gina said, "but the stress of us both trying to recover." 

The driver of a heavier boat, a 1987 Grady White, struck the Lienecks' 1989 Bayliner, Newsday reported at the time. The driver, an air traffic controller, was initially charged with boating while intoxicated. Earlier in the day, he was on Fire Island with colleagues attending an air traffic controllers' union picnic. He had reeked of alcohol and told police he’d had several beers that day, Homicide Squad Det. Lt. Jack Fitzpatrick said at the time. The driver refused a Breathalyzer test but passed a field sobriety test. When his blood was tested four hours later, there was no trace of alcohol in his system. A few weeks later, Suffolk prosecutors dropped the boating while intoxicated charges, Newsday reported.

A focus on lax laws 

Before Brianna's Law, only motorboat operators born after 1996 had to take a safety course. Gina credits her daughter Danyelle with first mentioning, while her parents were still in the hospital, that boating laws needed to be changed.

Brianna had always been very safety conscious, Gina said, even wearing a helmet while skiing. Gina would watch over her daughters as they played outside.

She always wanted to take care of them.

"For many years, I blamed myself," she said of Brianna’s death.

Right before the accident, Gina was at the front of the boat holding a light to help guide Frank toward the dock. Brianna approached and said she wanted to stand beside her.

"I said no, and she kept saying, 'Mom, I want to stand next to you,' " Gina said. "I yelled at her. My last words to my daughter were, ‘No! You get in that seat!’ thinking I’m protecting her, not putting her in harm’s way."

For years after the accident, Gina was mired in a deep depression.

"When you lose a child, you’re stuck between two worlds," she said. "Part of you wants to be here, and part of you wants to be with your other child."

Brianna, a skilled softball catcher nicknamed Breezy by her classmates, was kind, her mother said, and always looked out for others.

"She never wanted to see anyone left out or left behind," she said. Brianna befriended those who had been bullied and shared whatever she had with other kids.

Those memories inspired Gina's pursuit.

"I said, 'I want to do good, I want to give back,' " she said.

Political training

Gina began her advocacy for tougher boating laws in 2007, when she worked with then-Rep. Steve Israel on a federal bill. 

By 2012, her efforts gained traction at the county level when Suffolk required powerboat drivers registered in the county to complete a boater safety course.

Gina began talking to Rich Schaffer, the Babylon Town supervisor, regularly and sought his advice on a statewide effort.

Schaffer credits Gina with channeling her grief into advocacy. She "changed the trajectory of boating safety" in the state, he said.

"Don’t let her petite size fool you," Schaffer said. "She is a force to be reckoned with."

Gina, who before the accident worked in administration at BOCES, began making regular trips to Albany, driving up every week and staying there for two days while the State Legislature was in session.

Schaffer said he tried to guide Gina through the ins and outs of the state capital, calling his talks "Lobbying 101."

Gina made it a point to meet with each legislator. She attended fundraisers by herself and even learned lawmakers' routines — including that of former State Sen. Majority Leader John Flanagan (R-East Northport).

“He used to jog through the legislative office building and then he would be in the coffee shop and I would pop out at him,” she recalled, laughing. “I would be like, ‘Are you gonna put this to the floor? Are you gonna put this to the floor?’”

"She was up in Albany probably more than the legislators," former State Sen. Phil Boyle (R-Bay Shore) said with a laugh. 

Audra and Bobby DeMarco, longtime friends of the Lienecks who helped the family during their recovery, said they were amazed at Gina's transformation from quiet mother and wife into fierce advocate.

"She knew nothing about politics," said Audra DeMarco, 59. "She watched and learned and did what she needed to do to get it done. ... She was a tiger when she got up there."

Encountering pushback

Gina met resistance along the way. 

She struggled to secure the support of upstate legislators who feared a course requirement for renters would hurt tourism. Others thought not having an online option in rural areas was impractical. The final bill allowed online courses and excluded renters.

When there were setbacks in Albany, Lieneck would often call Schaffer and Boyle on the long drives home.

"I’d get worried about her," Boyle said. "In any legislative process it can be disappointing, especially when they say they’ll support you and then when push comes to shove, they don’t."

On Aug. 6, 2019, nearly 14 years after her daughter's death, Gina Lieneck watched as Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed Brianna's Law. Gina attended the bill signing ceremony in Copiague with two Long Island mothers who also lost children in boating accidents.

Making Brianna proud

Along with their emotional pain, the Lienecks continue to live with lasting nerve damage and both suffer from encephalomalacia, an irreversible loss of brain tissue that causes permanent brain damage.

The ailments make it "hard to get away from that day," Gina said. "You have a constant reminder."

When the State Legislature is back in session, Gina will return to Albany to push for another boating law: revoking a driver’s license if a vessel operator is convicted of boating while intoxicated. She is also pushing for a national boater education program.

Gina knows she is fighting against a longstanding culture that prizes leisure on the waterways. 

She said she's experienced social media attacks, with people telling her she’s "ruining their good time" by calling for tougher BWI laws.

 This past spring, she said one elected official insisted it would never pass.

"My last words to him were ‘You don’t know me, I will never give up on this and I will be back,’" she said. "I'm not going anywhere."

Her driving force remains Brianna, she said, and her motivation is simple.

"I never want to see another family have to go through the pain that we’ve gone through," she said.

Gina and Frank said they think Brianna would be proud of their advocacy work.

"There are many people out there who lose children, and they bury their child and then they live in silent pain and sorrow," Gina said. "We’re blessed for the fact that, not that we lost her, but it’s 21 years later and her legacy is living on."