FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. _ A fishing boat smashed into a jetty near Port Everglades in the middle of the night, sending a woman hurtling onto the rocks and also leaving three others injured. The crash propelled the 42-foot boat on top of the jetty.
The woman is thought to have been seriously injured. Three other boat occupants _ a woman and two men _ also were hurt, potentially with broken bones, said Broward Sheriff Fire Rescue Battalion Chief Michael Kane.
The call for help came just past midnight Tuesday. The jetty is in Hollywood's Dr. Von D. Mizell-Eula Johnson State Park, adjacent to the Port Everglades jetty.
"It's very dark over there and very difficult to see at night," Kane said.
The investigation, which would factor in whether the boat was speeding and if there was any impairment, will be done by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
The Conservation Commission did not release the names of the boat occupants or any additional information, other than to say the boat was a 42-foot Hydra-Sports Custom. Images from the scene Tuesday show the vessel having four outboard motors.
Until a few years ago, the jetty had been closed off to public for seven years because of safety matters following hurricanes Francis and Jeanne. The 1,000-foot jetty at the southern part of Port Everglades reopened in 2015.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could not be reached Tuesday for questions about the jetty's lighting and if lack of lighting may have played a role in the overnight crash. A news release from fire rescue, however, suggested that the people on the boat were having difficulties navigating the dark waters prior to the crash.
Everybody on board was taken to Broward Health Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale. Rescue crews used struts to secure the boat to keep it from falling onto them, according to video released by fire rescue.
It took members of the Broward Technical Rescue Team and fire boat units along with Hollywood Beach and Fort Lauderdale fire and rescue units about 20 minutes to rescue the four adults, Kane said.
The scene at the jetty was eerily familiar to other crash scenes, including the one that killed famed Miami Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez near Miami Beach.
In April, a couple and a woman were killed when a 32-foot Cape Horn slammed into the south side of a jetty at Government Cut near Miami Beach.
Fernandez ran into that same jetty in 2016. The impact caused the boat to overturn. Also killed were two passengers. The 2016 crash happened at 3:15 a.m.
An investigation by the Conservation Commission concluded that Fernandez was piloting the boat and that he had a blood alcohol content of 0.14%, above the legal threshold of .08%. The report said Fernandez also had cocaine in his system.
Following Fernandez's crash, the U.S. Coast Guard said the navigational aids at that inlet were sufficient.
Additional information from the Conservation Commission about Tuesday morning's boat crash is expected in the coming days.
