MAY 17, 2015
INDIANAPOLIS, IN
Indiana conservation officers are investigating a boating
crash on Geist Reservoir that sent one woman to the hospital in critical
condition.
A runabout boat collided with a pontoon boat on the southern
end of Geist Reservoir about 5:10 p.m. Sunday, according to a Department of
Natural Resources Division of Law Enforcement news release.
The accident happened just east of East 86th and
Fall Creek Road.
The driver of the pontoon boat, a 52-year-old woman, was
taken to St. Vincent Indianapolis Hospital with critical injuries. A passenger,
her 55-year-old husband, was thrown from the pontoon boat and was not injured,
according to a news release from Capt. Rita Reith of the Indianapolis Fire
Department.
The operator and occupants of the runabout, two adults and
five children, were not injured, Reith said.
Witnesses said the Sea Doo Challenger 1800 was traveling
about 50 mph. The pontoon boat was traveling at about 15 miles per hour. They
said the fast-traveling runaround boat broadsided the driver's side of the
pontoon boat and flew 15 feet in the air, over the pontoon boat, before landing
back in the water, Reith said.
The impact critically injured the woman driving the pontoon
boat, Reith said. No one on the Sea Doo was injured. The driver, a 38-year-old
man, said he saw the pontoon boat and made an effort to avoid it but was not
successful.
An accident reconstruction expert was assisting with the
investigation, the DNR release said.
Multiple calls to 911 offered different addresses for the
crash, which Reith said complicated the rescue effort.