CLEARWATER, Fla. (AP) — The water was calm and the skies were clear Sunday evening when a boat crashed into the Clearwater Ferry on the final day of a sand-sculpting festival, killing one person and injuring at least 12 others, officials said.
“We were just enjoying the ride and all of a sudden we heard the first mate yelling. ‘hey hey hey,’” Marco Vacheco, who was on the ferry with Brenda Alvarez and their two young children, told WFTS. “And we looked back behind us and this big yacht just came through the boat.”
The boat then fled the scene, authorities said.
The Clearwater Police Department posted on X that there were multiple injuries and the crash had been declared “a mass casualty incident” by the Clearwater Fire & Rescue Department due to the number of injuries.
All of those injured were aboard the ferry. Police did not provide any information about the person who died.
The ferry came to rest on a sandbar just south of the Memorial Causeway bridge and all patients and passengers have been removed.
“You never expect any of this to happen,” Brenda Alvarez said. “We can’t understand how fast they were going, like how that is even logically possible that they hit and were able to get off like that.”
