MARTIN COUNTY, Fla. — Three teenagers from Martin County were truly at the right place at the right time when a boat carrying six people crashed into a channel marker Friday night on the St. Lucie River.
When the collision happened, Nash Kennedy, Jack Aubuchon and Riley Kirby said they were on the water, maybe 50 yards away.
The boat hit channel marker ‘1’ right off the shore of the Snug Harbor community.
Kennedy, Aubuchon, and Kirby had been fishing like they do every Friday. They had just started driving to a new fishing spot when a boat passed them.
“We were probably going 25,” Kirby said, who was driving the boat.
“They came passing way faster than us,” Kennedy said. “I know I saw the channel marker and made sure to avoid it. I was tracking them with my eyes and in my head, I was like they’re going to hit that, and they smacked right into it.”
They quickly headed toward the damaged boat.
“We were thinking like, ‘Oh, man, somebody’s hurt.’ The speed they went … we knew somebody was hurt,” Kennedy said.
When they got to the boat, just three people were still on board. The passengers told the teens three people were in the water. Kennedy said there were two teenagers and a parent in the water, and they helped all three get out of the water.
One of the teenagers in the water, a 14-year-old boy, they said, had major injuries to his back. They are not sure if he hit the channel marker or hit the propeller.
“From his shoulders to his hip, [skin] was just completely gone…You could see his spine, some of his organs, and part of his kidney,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy used Kirby’s lifejacket to pack the wound and slow the bleeding.
The teens put him on their boat and rushed him to the shoreline near Benihana in Sewall’s Point to give rescuers quick access to put him in an ambulance.
“My father is a paramedic or was a paramedic, he retired. And pretty much my whole life he was giving me tips in case someone was seriously injured out on the water,” Kennedy said.
Those lessons proved crucial for his reaction to help the injured teen.
“I don’t think I’m the one who saved his life, but I think if we weren’t there in time to get him out of the water in the condition they were in, I think the situation might have [been worse],” Kennedy said.
This is not the first and likely will not be the last channel marker collision in the St. Lucie River at night when markers are difficult to see.
“I think no matter what there should always be better lighting on the markers,” Kennedy said.
But more lighting is not an easy or guaranteed addition to waterways, which is why they also hope their experience reminds boaters to be even more careful on the water at night.
“Especially if you’re new to boating and running at night, just make sure you know what your surroundings are,” Aubuchon said.