Cops say boat captain was drunk and high on drugs in Keys boat crash; 11-year-old boy hurt
A Florida Keys charter fishing boat captain was drunk on tequila and high on drugs when he slammed his vessel into a bridge over the summer, seriously injuring several of his clients, including an 11-year-old boy, police say.
Laurence Lewis, 42, slammed his 35-foot Seahunter center console into the South Pine Channel Bridge in the Lower Keys at 37 mph around 1:30 a.m. on July 8, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the state police agency that investigates boat crashes.
All eight people on board, including Lewis, were either ejected from the boat or trapped beneath pieces of the wrecked vessel, according to the Jan. 13 warrant written by FWC Investigator Joshua Peters. And, most, including Lewis had serious injuries.
Graphic body camera footage released at the time showed firefighters lifting Lewis off the boat with his leg barely attached. The 11-year-old boy suffered a broken leg and brain bleed, according to the report. A woman passenger also broke her leg. A man on board broke his foot, another had bruised ribs and another bruised ribs and a concussion, Peters wrote.
Investigators immediately suspected alcohol was a factor in the crash because Monroe County Sheriff’s Office deputies and paramedics first on the scene saw beer cans as well as a half-empty tequila bottle floating away from the boat when they arrived.
According to Peter’s report, FWC investigators also found a Costa sunglasses case with drug paraphernalia in it, including needles, a syringe, a spoon, cotton balls and a synthetic opioid pill prescribed to people trying to kick opiate addiction.
Lewis was so badly injured that morning that he needed immediate medical attention and was flown to Jackson South Medical Center in Miami-Dade County. This means cops couldn’t immediately draw blood to test for alcohol and drug use.
However, a medical blood draw taken at the hospital at 6 a.m. showed Lewis had a blood alcohol level of .05. State law says .08 is over the legal limit to operate a car or boat. Passengers on the boat told investigators that they saw him take his last drink — tequila and margarita mix — shortly before 1 a.m., according to the report.
So, investigators believe his blood alcohol level at the time of the crash was between .08 and .12, Peters states in his report.
READ MORE: FWC: Florida Keys boat crash that caused serious injuries was ‘alcohol-related’
What’s more, a Florida Department of Law Enforcement laboratory tested his blood at 4 a.m. that day and found it positive for both amphetamine and methamphetamine, the report states.
According to Peter’s report, Lewis told Investigator Glen Way during an interview after the crash that he had a prescription for the the synthetic opioid pill and injected it intravenously hours before embarking on the fishing trip.
That drug did not show up in blood tests, but Peters noted in his report that Lewis’ prescription did not direct him to take the medication intravenously.
The people on the boat that day were from Live Oak, Lake City and Big Pine Key, Florida, according to the FWC. When reached by phone Wednesday, one of the passengers, Presley Bean, 39, from Live Oak, declined to comment.
Chaos at scene
The body camera footage, from a sheriff’s office deputy, detailed the desperate scene first responders encountered when they arrived at the bridge, which connects Little Torch Key with Big Pine Keys. Deputies and firefighters had to use a roof ladder to climb down the bridge onto the boat, which was sinking.
The audio picked up the boy screaming in pain from his injuries.
Rescuers tried to get him up the ladder, about a 15-foot climb to the bridge, but he was in too much pain. Minutes later, a tow boat from TowBoat US came on the scene, offloaded the most seriously injured and rushed them to the Dolphin Marina on Little Torch Key, where county medics loaded them onto a helicopter ambulance and flew them to the mainland.
The footage also showed a Monroe County firefighter apply a tourniquet around Lewis’ badly mangled leg in an effort to keep it intact before they lifted him off his vessel onto the towboat.
Monroe deputies arrested Lewis at his Cypress Drive home on Big Pine Key Tuesday. He posted his $195,000 bond Wednesday morning, according to online jail records. He could not immediately be reached for comment and information on his legal representation was not immediately available.
He is charged with three counts of felony boating under the influence that caused serious bodily injury, one felony count of child neglect, a misdemeanor count of aggravated boating under the influence accompanied by a minor, misdemeanor reckless boating and possession of drug paraphernalia.
This story was originally published January 15, 2025 at 11:34 AM.
