☰
Florida
15-year-old Florida girl’s wakeboarding death opens lid on state’s lax lagoon laws
Miami-Dade Commissioner Raquel Regalado is seeking harsher penalties for boaters in hit-and-run accidents after Ella Adler’s death earlier in May.
The death of 15-year-old ballerina Ella Riley Adler, who was struck and killed by an oncoming vessel after she lost hold of a tow-rope while wakeboarding in Florida last week, has brought the disparity in punishments between hit-and-run incidents on the road and at sea to light.
Last week, Carlos Guillermo Alonso, 78, owner of the 42-foot Boston Whaler, hit the teen on the afternoon of May 11 near Key Biscayne, according to an incident report provided by Fox News Digital by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Adler and another teen had been wakeboarding — a water sport similar to waterskiing, but involving a single board strapped to the feet — behind another 42-foot boat with 11 occupants onboard. Both youths lost grip of their tow-ropes at different times, the agency said, and their boat was circling around to retrieve them from the water when solo-boater Alonso hit Adler and jetted away without stopping.
Ella Riley Adler, 15, was killed during the May 11 incident in Biscayne Bay. (Provided by Adler family )
“If his boat was involved, I can tell you he had absolutely no idea that that is what happened that day. He is as devastated as anybody could be,” she told NBC6.
Alonso’s boat was seized at his Coral Gables home and impounded pending further investigation, the agency said. Currently, no criminal charges have been lodged against him.
Miami-Dade Commissioner Raquel Regalado told Fox News Digital that she will push for harsher penalties for hit-and-run boaters in light of the incident.
Per Florida law, drivers on the roadway can be sentenced to anywhere between 60 days and 30 years in prison, depending on whether the incident is determined to be a third, second or first-degree felony. A statute developed in 2014 made accidents an automatic second-degree felony at minimum if the driver leaves the scene, Regalado said.
Photo of Carlos Guillermo Alonso
Carlos Guillermo Alonso, 78, is pictured last Thursday following the fatal incident. (WSVN)
But on the water, Maritime attorneys told Fox News Digital, there is a maximum sentence of five years for hit-and-run boating accidents i
nvolving personal injury or death.
Leave a Reply