Boat with two aboard capsizes off Hillsboro Inlet, one killed

Posted on 01 July 2011 by JLusk

Once again a man was killed and another rescued during a fishing trip Thursday afternoon when an 18-foot Bayliner capsized about a mile off the Hillsboro Inlet.

Fishermen in another vessel rescued one of the men, and Broward Sheriff Fire-Rescue brought the other ashore, where he was pronounced dead at the scene.

This is the second case of a boat capsizing that involved a fatality off the Hillsboro Inlet in the last few weeks.

On June 20, a 15-foot Cobia open fishing boat began taking on water around 10 p.m. and quickly sank. Kenneth Williams Sr., 36, of Deerfield Beach, drowned.

The two men aboard the Bayliner were caught in a thunderstorm that kicked up quickly offshore Thursday, bringing high winds and rain, said Rick Macher of Fort Lauderdale, one of five fishermen aboard the Dig It who plucked the man from the sunken boat.

As the men aboard the Dig It pulled in their lines to return to Hillsboro Inlet, they noticed the Bayliner flipped over with one man clinging to the bow, said another fisherman on the boat.

The Dig It circled the sunken boat, and the fishermen threw the man a life preserver. As they pulled him aboard, the man indicated that he had a friend on the Bayliner.

“We said, ‘Where’s your friend?’ and he said, ‘I don’t know, he went down,’ ” Escamilla said. “We found the friend and pulled him in and did CPR.”

Coast Guard crew members boarded the Dig It and also tried to resuscitate the second man, but when he was taken ashore, he was pronounced dead.

The Broward Sheriff’s Office is investigating the fatality, but it appears to be an accidental drowning, said Sheriff’s Office spokesman Jim Leljedal. He said the Sheriff’s Office would not release the identities of the two men aboard the Bayliner Thursday night.

The rescued man said the Bayliner’s anchor was to small.

 

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