|
WLIP News -
The Wisconsin Deparment of Transportation is sending a special re-enactment team to the site of the fatal pleasure-boat crash that killed a Kenosha man last weekend. Daniel M. Eddy of 1913 28th Street was killed in a tragic boating accident around 1:15 Sunday morning on Lake Michigan over the weekend when the craft he was piloting suddenly rammed the Simmons Island breakwater in the darkness. Eddy, an electrician who grew up in Kenosha, had just bought the boat this summer. Investigators say that alcohol was definitely a factor in the crash but exactly to what extent has yet to be determined.
Eddy was entertaining two friends, 26-year-old Andrea Wooters, 2413 Fifteenth Place, Kenosha, and Charles Meldahl of 10320 34th Avenue, Pleasant Prairie on his boat early Sunday morning. Authorities say the boat was speeding, and crashed into a break wall. Eddy died immediately. Wooters and Meldahl remain in Kenosha Memorial Hospital. Meldahl owns Charles Meldahl Firearms in the Prime Outlets shopping mall. Wooters suffered a fractured spine and may be transferred to Froedert Medical Center in milwaukee.
“It’s a very difficult time for me,” O’Connell said.
The Coast Guard rescued Wooters and Meldahl, who were found lying on the break wall. Kenosha Fire Department divers recovered Eddy's body.
The Coast Guard hopes this tragedy will encourage boaters to be safer when boating after dark. "Reducing speed at night is important,” Lt. Kristie Cabanting said.
“He was just a great guy and we're going to miss him for sure,” O’Connell said.
Authorities are still investigating whether or not alcohol played a role in the crash.
The original article follows:
Boat hits Kenosha harbor wall; 1 dead
Daniel M. Eddy of 1913 28th Street, Kenosha is dead following an early morning boat crash in the Kenosha harbor. Eddy, in his mid-30s, crashed his boat into the outer breakwater of the harbor. Two passengers — Andrea Wooters and Charles Meldoff, both in their mid-20s — were injured. Wooters was taken to Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital in Wauwatosa for treatment, while Meldoff was treated in Kenosha.
The U.S. Coast Guard out of Kenosha was the first to respond to the crash. Coast Guard personnel learned of the crash at about 1:15 a.m. when one of the injured people called 911 using a cell phone. The caller said their boat had slammed into the breakwater and that two of them were on the rocks of the breakwater; another was missing in the water.
Coast Guard personnel were coming out of the harbor when they spotted the debris field, said Petty Officer 3rd Class Matthew Collins. “We come around the outer part of the breakwater and see the boat in pieces, barely floating,” he said. “We see two people laying on the breakwater ... up on the rocks.”
He transferred two crew members to the rocks to assess and assist the victims before heading back into the harbor to pick up three more rescue personnel to help. “It was kind of rough at this time as well,” he said. “We were getting slammed up into the rocks. We got the EMTs transferred over. They secured the female to a backboard and assisted the male patient on board.”
From there, he said, he took everybody back to the harbor to drop off the surviving victims with waiting ambulances before heading back out to search for the still-missing driver of the boat. By this time there was a Coast Guard helicopter, another Coast Guard boat, two fire department boats and a boat from the Sheriff’s Department there to assist.
After searching for about an hour, Collins said, they located the driver near the rocks. The Kenosha dive team recovered his body. Collins said it appears that alcohol was a factor in the crash, according to the Department of Natural Resources, which is investigating, but it hasn’t been determined how much of a role alcohol played.
Collins said none of the victims were wearing life jackets. “Of drownings that occur, 90 percent of victims are not wearing life jackets,” he said. “That’s the biggest thing we want to stress. They’re making life jackets lighter, less cumbersome, easier to wear. It will not save you in every situation, but it will definitely help.”
|
