An adult and child have died following a crash on a personal watercraft in Marathon, Florida, according to local news outlets reporting.
Emergency responders were called to the area near 15th Street Ocean around 6:45 p.m. after the personal watercraft crashed into a sea wall.
Police shared a photo of the mangled watercraft which was then published on various news outlet websites and social media. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is investigating the crash.
The first day of school drop-off lines can be particularly hectic with friends waving to one another after months away and frustrating traffic jams but, for one Florida family, the new school year’s drop-off turned tragic when a mother accidentally hit her child with her car.
The incident happened before 8 a.m. Monday during school drop-off when the Sarasota middle schooler was attempting to retrieve school supplies that had fallen underneath the car. The child crawled under the SUV to pick up the pens and markers. The mother, who told police she did not see the girl, hit her.
The girl was airlifted to a hospital in St. Petersburg in critical condition. There was no update on the child’s condition as of Tuesday.
Yesterday, the annual Fantasy Fest was drawing to a close, but countless visitors and locals will not forget several terrible accidents which caused Overseas Highway to be shutdown for several hours by police.
Monroe County Sheriff’s Deputy Becky Herrin told the Sun-Sentinel that they “expect heavy traffic, possibly with a bottleneck in Islamorada that sometimes stretches to the Long Key Bridge. Our roads can only hold so many cars. And Fantasy Fest pretty much maxes out our traffic.”
During the last weekend of the festivities in Key West, Florida Highway Patrol and numerous Sheriff’s Deputies responded to more than 21 motor vehicle accidents. One of them involved the collision of a motorcycle with another car at mile marker 29.5 in Big Pine Key. One of the two people on the motorcycle was severely injured and rushed to Fishermen’s Hospital in Marathon where he was pronounced dead. The second occupant was flown to Miami by helicopter for further medical treatment.
Several hours earlier, two vehicles collided at mile marker 41 on the seven-mile bridge, which required the emergency rescue and transport to three people to Fishermen’s Hospital.
Over the years, the road to and from Key West has seen thousands of car accidents, with many resulting in fatalities. The causes for these crashes are often times attributed to speeding, alcohol, or texting. A study has revealed that between 2006 and 2010, Monroe County averaged 1,329 car accidents every year. Also, in the last 34 years, ending in 2009, the number of fatal car accidents throughout the county of Monroe was drastically higher than the average for the rest of the state of Florida. In the past ten years, there have been more than 220 fatal accidents in Monroe County.
Leesfield & Partners have established their offices in Key West over three decades ago and have been a staple in the personal injury landscape in Key West and throughout the Florida Keys.
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