N.C. woman dead, man arrested after motorboat hits sailboat in Florida Keys, officials say
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A 24-year-old North Carolina woman was killed and three others were critically injured when a motorboat crashed into a sailboat in the Florida Keys on Friday night, according to law enforcement sources.
Alcohol appears to have been a factor in the crash, Assistant Monroe County State Attorney Joseph Mansfield told the Miami Herald. Mansfield said the motorboat captain appeared “severely intoxicated” and was being questioned by police Friday night. The captain’s son was arrested, Mansfield said, after attacking a man on the sailboat after the crash.
The crash happened in Florida Bay off mile marker 96 in Key Largo around 8 p.m., Mansfield said.
A 21-foot motorboat with four people on board struck an anchored 34-foot sailboat while traveling through Buttonwood Sound, according to Arielle Callender, a spokesperson with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which is investigating the crash.
All four people were ejected from the motorboat. Three people were rescued from the water with injuries, according to FWC. On Saturday, the FWC identified the dead woman pulled from the water as Sydney Cole from Fuquay Varina, North Carolina, south of Raleigh.
One person was airlifted to a Miami-Dade hospital in critical condition, Mansfield said Friday night. The FWC identified the hospitalized woman as 58-year-old Lillian Cairo, of Oakland Park in Broward County.
According to the FWC’s initial report on the crash, the operator of the powerboat is 61-year-old Guy Erdman, also from Oakland Park. He had not been arrested as of Saturday night.
Another man on the boat, 31-year-old Christopher Erdman — who is Guy Erdman’s son — was uninjured, but according to Monroe County Sheriff’s Office jail records, was arrested on one count of felony battery and another count of felony aggravated assault.
Mansfield said that after the crash, the younger Erdman boarded the sailboat and attacked the 71-year-old man on the vessel.
The man, and his 70-year-old wife, were not injured in the crash, according to the FWC report. Mansfield said the man declined medical treatment resulting from the alleged assault by Christopher Erdman.
This story was originally published December 27, 2024 at 11:17 PM.
