POMPANO BEACH — Lynne Kelley was asleep and her husband was watching a recorded fishing show on the TV in their master bedroom Tuesday night when the 30-plus-foot Hydra-Sports boat came crashing onto their property from the Intracoastal.
The only thing standing between the window of their bedroom in the 1500 block of West Terra Mar Drive in Pompano Beach and the flying debris, she said, was the tiki hut sitting on the patio outside. It may have saved their lives.
Two days later, glass remains everywhere, Kelley, 57, said. The dock is half-crushed. The boat lift is crushed. And the tiki hut is crushed, half submerged in the water.
“It’s just a mess,” she told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the identity of the boat captain and the extent of his injuries remain unknown, as does the cause of the crash. The Coast Guard did not respond to the incident, a spokesperson said Thursday. The Broward Sheriff’s Office directed questions to Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, but FWC did not respond to calls or emails Thursday.
Kelley and her husband, Bill, only heard the crash, she said. But they believe that the boat slammed into a mile marker in the Intracoastal first, then ricocheted into their dock, crashing into their own boat and the tiki hut, before bouncing back into the Intracoastal.
When the couple emerged from their bedroom onto the patio, they saw one of their boat’s motors sitting by the pool, another under the tiki hut. Otherwise, they couldn’t tell what debris was theirs and what belonged to the boat.
The Hydra-Sport boat, meanwhile, was floating about 20 feet away in the middle of the Intracoastal. The boat captain appeared to be in and out of consciousness, Kelley said. Two boys who were fishing at the time tried to scream at him to wake him up, then asked her and her husband to call 911, but their neighbor already had.
At one point, Kelley said, she thought she heard the captain say, ‘What did I hit?’”
When police arrived, one of the boys drove the officer over to the boat. They got the boat operator back to the dock, she said, his face bloody. He looked to be in his 60s, she said. Unnerved by the sight of blood, Kelley went inside. The sea tow company couldn’t remove the boat until 2 a.m. Wednesday because they had to wait for high tide.
Kelley and her husband are now dealing with the aftermath, hoping that insurance will cover the damage. The hull of their boat is cracked, in addition to the two ripped-off motors. She thinks it was totaled, but that isn’t her main concern.
“I just hope the man that hit us is okay, I really do,” she said. “…I know it sounds corny, and yes, I want everything replaced, but you can’t replace somebody. So I do hope he’s okay.”