MIAMI — A boat driver who police say cut a parasail cable on Memorial Day, dragging three people across the water before they crashed into a Florida Keys bridge, could face criminal charges, according to the state agency that enforces laws on the water.
Capt. David Dipre, head of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Keys operations, told the Miami Herald in a text response to questions about pending charges: “Yes, it’s possible. Awaiting further investigation.”
The FWC’s preliminary report says Daniel Couch, captain of the parasailing boat, cut the line after the parasail “pegged,” meaning it filled with so much air from a strong wind gust that he feared it would drag the boat.
Monroe County State Attorney Dennis Ward said the report is not enough to go on for him to definitively say his office will seek charges against Couch or the owners of the parasailing company, Lighthouse Parasail, which operates out of Marathon and the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
“I’m waiting to see a complete report first,” Ward said Wednesday.
Couch could not be reached for comment. The owners of Lighthouse Parasail, Alex and Jacquelin Winter, declined to comment. The business took down its Facebook page on Wednesday.
Supraja Alaparthi, 33, from Schaumburg, Illinois, died after the parasail was cut loose, dragging her and two children across the water and into the Old Seven Mile Bridge in Marathon.
“That changes the whole perspective here,” Mark McCulloh, chairman of the Florida-based Parasail Safety Council, said of the boat captain’s apparent decision to snap the line.
The rescue
Keys tarpon fishing guide John Callion raced to save Alaparthi, her 10-year-old son, Sriakshith, and her 9-year-old nephew, Vishant Sadda after he saw them hit the water with the parasail furiously pulling them across the waves.
“I was recording because I thought the parasail boat was going to be able to take control of the situation and I was going to record a rescue. But as time went on it was clear to me that the parasail boat was in dire need of assistance,” Callion wrote on his Facebook page Wednesday.
Callion then revved his 25-foot boat around Pidgeon Key, a small island just off the northern base of the Seven Mile Bridge, to reach the woman and two children. When he got to the old bridge, he cut them loose from the harness.
Sriakshith was battered, but otherwise OK. Sadda was unconscious and wrapped in the parasail’s lines. Alaparthi had no pulse. Callion and his passengers performed CPR on the victims.
Callion brought all three people to the nearby Sunset Grill restaurant at the base of the bridge on Knight’s Key, which police and firefighters used as a base of operations. Fish and Wildlife officers, Monroe County sheriff’s deputies and local fire-rescue crews tried unsuccessfully to revive her.
The weather
Did weather play a role in the tragedy?
A photograph shows dark storm clouds looming over the visiting family early Monday evening, minutes before high winds overwhelmed their parasail. The photo was taken by Marathon resident Lisa Powell, who was on a boat near the Seven Mile Bridge at 5:11 p.m. on Memorial Day.
She left the area four minutes later without giving much thought to the picture she took.
Callion told the Miami Herald that weather right before the tragedy was “flat calm,” but a storm was clearly on the horizon and the weather turned ugly quickly.
“You could see the storm coming,” he said. “All of the sudden, the temperature dropped by 10 degrees and the wind started blowing like crazy.”
The family
Alaparti and her husband, Srinivas Rao Alaparthi, purchased a home in Cook County, Illinois, about a month before the tragedy, property records show. The couple had been married 10 years, according to Times of India.
Attempts to reach him by email were not immediately successful.
The Alaparthis are originally from the southeastern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, according to The New Indian Express. The last rites are expected to be performed later this weekend at Supraja’s in-laws’ village in Chintapudi, Bapatla district.
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Miami Herald staff writers Omar Rodriguez Ortiz in Miami and Gwen Filosa in Key West contributed to this report.
