Girls still hospitalized after tube hits yacht
Staff reports
Updated 10:46 am, Monday, August 3, 2015
Two teenage girls were pulled unconscious from Long Island Sound and hospitalized after the tube they were riding off Jennings Beach slammed into a large yacht Sunday afternoon.
One of the girls — both 13-year-old residents of Long Island — was in critical condition Sunday evening, while the other was less seriously injured, police Chief Gary MacNamara said.
“I don’t believe it’s life-threatening,” MacNamara said of injuries to either girl.
The two girls were hospitalized after both were briefly rendered unconsicious by the impact of the 4:30 p.m. Sunday crash. They were rescued from the water by people aboard the yacht, police said, including the yacht’s owner, the father of one of the injured teens.
Their names or updated condition were not available as of Monday morning.
The Fairfield police marine unit was dispatched to the scene, where Marine Officer Keith Perham found the girls had been taken aboard a 69-foot-long yacht, “Tranquillo,” anchored about one-eighth of a mile off Jennings Beach.
Perham, joined by personnel from the Bridgeport police marine unit, boarded the yacht and found the two teenagers were still unconscious.
They stabilized the girls for transport to South Benson Marina, where firefighters and AMR paramedics were standing by.
According to a preliminary investigation of the accident Monday, police said the girls were riding a two-person tube being towed by a Nautica rubberized ribbed tender, which apparently was part of the yacht’s equipment.
Minutes into the ride, the towing dinghy appeared to lose control and the two teens aboard the tube struck the side of yacht. The impact threw both girls face down and unconscious into the water, police said.
The incident is similar to an accident last year when 16-year-old Emily Fedorko, of Greenwich, was killed and another girl seriously injured when they were run over by a boat that was towing them on a tube.
The accident prompted a new state law this year under which boat operators must be 16 years old and have a legal driver’s license.
“The quick actions of the private boaters that pulled the girls from the water and called 911 directly impacted the speed and effectiveness of medical care,” Assistant Fire Chief Scott Bisson said in a statement issued after the incident.
Police from the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection turned investigation of the accident over to its Boating Accident Reconstruction Unit, assisted by Fairfield police.