Three dead, one injured, when boat hits Miami's Government Cut Jetty at night
by Peter Janssen 26 Apr 2019 23:17 PDT
A boat involved in a fatal crash remained on the rocks Monday morning in Government Cut © Peter Janssen
Three people were killed and one injured when their center console crashed into the north jetty of Miami's Government Cut at 9:30 on Saturday night. The accident occurred at the same place where Miami Marlin's star pitcher José Fernandez and two of his friends died in October, 2016, when his boat ran into the jetty at night.
In the latest crash, Christopher and Elisaine Colgan, a married couple from Lighthouse Point, were celebrating a birthday on Saturday night when their 32-foot Cape Horn hit the jetty and turned over. (Elisaine would have been 39 on Sunday.) Miami-Dade Fire Rescue found their bodies at the scene. They also found Troy Forte, 37, from Juno Beach, and rushed him to a trauma center in Miami, where he was in critical condition.
The teams searched all day Easter Sunday for a fourth passenger. They found the body of Jennifer Y Munoz Cadavid, 28, from Fort Lauderdale, on the beach Monday morning, not far from the crash scene.
Christopher Colgan, 56, was identified as an experienced boater and fisherman. Elisaine was a real estate agent. They had a 16-year-old son, who was not on the boat at the time of the accident.
After the Fernandez accident, the Coast Guard said it would investigate whether the lighting on the jetty was sufficient, but ultimately decided against adding more lights. However, Carlos Gimenez, the mayor of Miami-Dade, disagreed, and wrote a memo in 2017 asking the Coast Guard to put more lights on the jetty.
"Something has to be done there so we can light up those jetties a little bit better so that boaters know, hey, there is something there," he said. "I've been out there at night, you cannot see them."
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Cruising Odyssey.