Tuesday, July 21, 2015

1 woman critically injured after drunk boat driver hits pylon on the Old Seven Mile Bridge near Marathon, Florida

 


 
Daughter of former county sheriff injured in boat crash
The daughter of former Monroe County Sheriff Bob Peryam was critically hurt Saturday night along with a man after they were ejected from a boat that struck the Old Seven Mile Bridge near Marathon, state wildlife officers said.

Allison Marie Peryam, 29, of Marathon, was airlifted to Ryder Trauma Center in Miami after the 7:30 p.m. crash, along with the man whose name was not immediately released by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
 
Peryam and the man were in a center console boat that struck a bridge pylon traveling about 40 mph, said FWC Capt. David Dipre. Neither was wearing life jackets. There were no other reported boats involved. 

The cause of the crash remained under investigation Monday, Dipre said. 

“Both patients are stable,” Dipre said. “They’re lucky they didn’t lose their lives. They came very close to it.”

One or both of the pair have regained consciousness and officers were en route to Miami to interview them about the crash Monday, Dipre said. 

Charges may be pending in the case, but Dipre declined to speculate what those may be. 

The Coast Guard removed the boat from the bridge and a private salvor towed it to shore, but Dipre said he was not sure what shape the vessel was in as of Monday. 

Bob Peryam declined to comment when reached by phone. He is executive director of the North Florida High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area group (HIDTA) in Jacksonville, which he began in January 2013. 

• In an unrelated case, FWC officers arrested a drunken liveaboard Sunday off Islamorada after he brandished a gun and was reportedly threatening to shoot passing boaters who awakened him, Dipre said. 

Scott Thomas Brady, 53, faces charges of boating while intoxicated and resisting arrest. Both are misdemeanors. He has a previous arrest on Dec. 26, 2011, for assault with a deadly weapon, but prosecutors later dropped the charge, according to clerk of court records. 

He was taken to Monroe County Detention Center on Stock Island where he remained Monday on $1,500 bail.