JUNE 11, 2015
PANAMA CITY BEACH, FLORIDA
A teenage tour guide was killed in an open-water crash
between his personal watercraft and a 20-foot-long boat, the Florida Fish and
Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) confirmed Thursday.
Storm Davis McDaniel, 17, was pronounced dead at a local
hospital Wednesday night at about 7 p.m. after the crash in Grand Lagoon, FWC
officials reported.
According to FWC reports, McDaniel was driving a 2013 Yamaha
personal watercraft between 35 mph and 45 mph east in Grand Lagoon with a group
of followers behind him. James D. Moulder, of Brewton, Alabama, was approaching
a campsite area of St. Andrews State Park, operating a 20-foot-long Sea Fox
containing three other occupants, officers reported.
Officials said McDaniel was facing backward, toward the
group following behind him, at about 5:40 p.m. when he careened into the front,
port-side of the vessel and was ejected from the personal watercraft. Two
occupants of the Sea Fox also were ejected from the boat because of the
violence of the impact between the vessels, officials said.
Investigators reported Moulder was operating at a slow speed
with his motor trimmed after entering shallow, grassy water. He attempted to
make an evasive maneuver, but he could not get enough propulsion before the
crash happened, FWC officers said.
However, witnesses in the group of personal watercrafts said
the boat was unwavering in direction and traveling at about 25 mph. Some gave
their contact information to investigators but have not been contacted for a
statement, one witness said.
“There’s no way this boat was operating at a low rate of
speed,” said Alex Beasley, a visitor from Huntsville, Alabama, who was at the back of one personal watercraft. “And we weren’t in shallow, grassy water.
We’d just started turning it up because we were in open water.”