A 33-year-old mother was tragically killed, while her son and nephew were injured, in a parasailing accident where they collided with the Seven Mile Bridge in the Florida Keys on Memorial Day.
Supraja Alaparthi, of Schaumburg, Illinois, was parasailing with her son Sriakshith, ten, and her nephew Vishant Sadda, nine, near Pigeon Key in the late afternoon, according to a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) report obtained by Breitbart News. While sailing, the weather changed suddenly, as John Callion, who was boating in the area at the time, described the conditions going from “flat calm” to suddenly stormy “in a matter of seconds.”
The FWC report stated that Captain Daniel Couch cut the line from the boat that was carrying the three family members after “a strong gust of wind ‘pegged’ the parasail.”
“Pegging a parasail,” as described by the commission, “is an industry term or jargon to describe when the parasail chute becomes controlled by the weather conditions (wind speed) and not by the operation of the vessel.”
Callion took video footage of the vessel struggling to maintain control of the situation, which he later shared on Facebook.
Per the report:
With the parasail pegged, the Captain cut the line tethered to three victims. The three victims dropped from an unknown height and dragged through the water by the inflated parasail. The chute continued to drag the victims through and across the surface of the water until the parasail collided with the old 7-Mile Bridge, West of Pigeon Key.
According to a press release from the U.S. Coast Guard, Key West 911 dispatchers contacted them at around 5:20 p.m. regarding the incident.
Callion was first on the scene after witnessing the incident and rushed into action to aid the victims. As Callion detailed in a Facebook post recounting the event, he “cut the harnesses to free each victim from the attached chute, which was hung up on the bridge.”
As soon as the victims were on board, Callion sped to shore to meet emergency personnel.
Upon arriving onshore in the Middle Keys city of Marathon, per the Miami Herald, Alaparthi was pronounced dead by authorities on the scene.
Both children were taken to a local hospital, where authorities told the Herald that the nephew, Sadda, was then airlifted to Nicklaus Children’s Hospital near South Miami to be treated for injuries suffered “to his left eye, arms, legs and torso.” The report noted that the weather conditions were still poor at the time, and the nine-year-old’s hospital transfer was delayed until 10:00 p.m., arriving in Miami after 10:30 p.m.
The commission report stated that the son, Sriakshith, only sustained “minimal injuries.”
The captain of the boat carrying the parasail has received criticism from a local parasailing safety expert regarding his decision to cut the line. “He never should have done that,” Mark McCulloh, chairman of the Parasail Safety Council, told the Herald. “That’s the golden rule. Do not cut the line.”
McCulloh “said the captain should have known other tactics, like steering the boat side to side, which would have deflated the parasail,” the Herald wrote.
You can follow Ethan Letkeman on Twitter at @Ethan Letkeman.
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