The Florida boat that flipped killing a Maine couple and their friend was going as fast as 80 mph at the time, witnesses told a Cape Coral TV station.
The accident happened Saturday evening on a river in Cape Coral, just south of Fort Myers near the Cape Coral Yacht Club in the Caloosahatchee River.
The sole survivor of the four passengers on what was described as an MTI 390 speedboat was discharged Wednesday from Gulf Coast Hospital.
Neal Kirby, 45, of Cape Coral, the only survivor, suffered multiple injuries, including six broken ribs, possibly from a bystander giving him CPR trying to get the seawater out of his lungs, witnesses said.
Kirby got out of the hospital’s ICU Wednesday and is expected to face a long road of recovery. He also had a broken pelvis and clavicle, friends of his say.
The crash claimed the lives of Craig and Brenna Millett, a couple who lived six months of the year in Biddeford and the other half in Cape Coral.
Craig Millett, 56, who grew up in Old Orchard Beach and owned the speed boat, is the former longtime owner of Champagne Energy in Arundel. His wife, 49, was an agent with Bedard Realty in Saco.
Also killed in the crash was Rebecca Knight, 48, another Mainer who had become friends with the Milletts after they met in Florida. Knight, too, maintained a home in Cape Coral.
“They love boating. I mean, they really did. And it’s just so sad. It’s just a tragedy. I’m having a hard time processing it,” Priscilla Willame, who knew the victims, told WGME-TV of Portland.
The four people on the boat were thrown when it suddenly flipped while going 80 mph, which the manufacturer describes as its “cruising speed.”
The two engines on the speed boat were ripped off when the vessel flipped at a high rate of speed, according to Bradley Johnson, public information officer for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Johnson said wind might have been a factor in worsening the ability of the pilot to control the boat, described as a catamaran-style speed boat.
Kirby, a Cape Coral property manager and the lone survivor, was believed to have been the only one on the boat who was wearing a specially-constructed, rigid safety vest to prevent injury during high-speed water maneuvering.
Brad Barkis, a friend of Kirby’s, posted on Facebook that a bystander found Kirby floating in the water after the accident, unresponsive and not breathing.
Simon Tusha, a friend of the Milletts, told Cape Coral’s Fox 4 Now WFTX-TV he was in his own boat, in front of theirs, when the tragedy occurred.
“I turned around and I saw the boat flipping,” Tusha said.
The MTI 390, the vessel involved in the accident, is a high-performance, 39-foot outboard powerboat, built on a catamaran design and powered by twin Mercury Racing engines.
The boat, which sells for nearly $1 million, can reach speeds of 80 mph or more depending on the engine setup.
Two years ago Millett posted on his Facebook page a picture of his boat on its trailer with a caption saying “I want to go fast now,” the Fort Myers News-Press reported.
