Two teens remained hospitalized Wednesday as an investigation continued into a Sunday night boat crash near Boca Chita Key that killed a high school senior from Miami.
A total of 14 people were on the 29-foot boat when it struck a channel marker in the Intracoastal waterway near the south end of Cutter Bank in Miami-Dade County around 6:30 p.m., a report from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said.
All 14 occupants were ejected from the boat during the crash and more than half of them were injured, the report said.
Among the passengers on the boat were two aduts and 12 17-year-old students from Our Lady of Lourdes Academy and Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart, two all-girls Catholic schools in Miami-Dade County.
Get South Florida local news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC South Florida newsletters.
Luciana "Lucy" Fernandez, a senior at Lourdes Academy, died as a result of the injuries she sustained in the crash.
According to a statement from Lourdes Academy, seniors Katerina "Katy" Puig and Coco Aguilar were both critically injured in the crash.
Sources said two of the passengers remained hospitalized Wednesday, and a third was released from the hospital on Tuesday. One victim was at Nicklaus Children's Hospital and the other at Jackson Memorial Hospital.
Local
New images from Wednesday showed the badly damaged boat on the back of a trailer.
The report said the FWC does not believe alcohol was a contributing factor in the crash, though it remains under investigation.
The driver of the boat was said to be an experienced boater, and several sources close to the investigation said it was a terrible accident involving the wake of another boat.
The tragedy has deeply impacted members of the Lourdes and Carrollton communities.
"It's like losing a sister. Lucy touched everyone’s lives in one way or another," said Fernandez's friend, Beatriz Nuñez.
"All of the students that were on the boat in the accident were all very interconnected, they've been family friends - parents included - since they were little girls," said Sister Carmen Fernandez, from Our Lady of Lourdes. "So this has hit home in a lot of different ways."
