FWC: Florida Keys boat crash that caused serious injuries was ‘alcohol-related’
The operator of a charter boat that slammed into a Florida Keys bridge early Monday, seriously injuring himself and two other people, including a 12-year-old boy, was drinking alcohol and was not licensed to take paid customers on fishing trips, according to the Monroe County State Attorney’s Office.
The 35-foot Sea Hunter center console crashed into the South Pine Channel Bridge around 2 a.m., injuring all eight people on board, according to a report released Friday from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which investigates vessel crashes in the state.
READ MORE: Body-cam footage shows rescue of child, others from boat that crashed into Keys bridge
According to the report, alcohol was a factor in the crash, and an arrest is pending.
Joseph Mansfield, chief assistant Monroe County state attorney, told the Miami Herald that passengers on the boat told FWC investigators that the captain, 42-year-old Laurence Lewis, was drinking from a tequila bottle the entire fishing expedition.
Investigators that morning found numerous empty beer cans in the water surrounding the badly damaged boat, as well as a tequila bottle that was three-quarters empty, Mansfield said.
Investigators could not draw blood from Lewis that morning because he was badly injured and needed to be flown out immediately to a Miami-Dade County hospital for treatment. A Monroe County Sheriff’s Office deputy’s body camera footage showed Lewis lying on the bow of the sinking boat as a paramedic was trying to keep his lower leg intact.
However, investigators obtained a search warrant for his blood to be taken at the hospital and, as of Friday, were awaiting the results.
“I don’t think it’s a matter of ‘if’ they detect alcohol, it’s a matter of how much,” Mansfield said.
Lewis’ charter fishing license is also expired, so Mansfield said the fishing trip was a “bootleg charter.” Mansfield said the cooler on the boat contained several snapper and amberjack.
A call to Lewis’ cell phone that is listed on his company’s website went straight to voicemail. Information on his legal counsel was not immediately available.
Arielle Callender, a spokeswoman for the FWC, said Friday that all of the injured from the crash were in stable condition as of Friday.
The deputy’s body camera footage released this week detailed the chilling scene when first responders came upon the wreck at the bridge, which connects Little Torch Key with Big Pine Key. As deputies and firefighters had to use a roof ladder to descend the bridge onto the sinking boat, the boy was screaming in agony because he had multiple leg fractures.
Rescuers tried to get him up the ladder, about a 15-foot climb to the bridge, but he was in too much pain. Minutes later, a tow boat from TowBoat US came on the scene, offloaded the most seriously injured and rushed them to the Dolphin Marina on Little Torch, where county medics loaded them onto a helicopter ambulance and flew them to the mainland.
The footage, which the Herald decided was too graphic to be published, also showed a Monroe firefighter treat Lewis as his leg, with a makeshift tourniquet around the middle, appeared badly mangled.
This story was originally published July 12, 2024 at 12:54 PM with the headline "FWC: Florida Keys boat crash that caused serious injuries was ‘alcohol-related’."
