Twenty one seniors die on Lake George
The Ethan Allen, a 40 foot tour boat carrying 48 passengers capsized at Cramer’s Point on Lake George in upstate New York. Apparently the Mohican, a large cruise ship owned by the Lake George Steamboat company, passed close to the Ethan Allen. The large wake generated by the Mohican was enough to capsize the Allen and unfortunately, twenty one people drowned.
The Ethan Allen is glass enclosed to protect the elderly passengers from the elements. Apparently, many of the senior citizens were trapped in this enclosure and drowned. According to CNN, many of the passengers used wheelchairs and walkers so they probably did not have the ability to free themselves from the wreckage.
The state of New York requires that all commercial water craft have one life preserver per passenger but adults do not have to wear them.
This type is disaster is unprecedented on Lake George.
Parks officials said the sinking of the Ethan Allen was the state’s worst boating accident in recent memory. Jim Millard, a local historian, said he believed it was the worst ever on Lake George, and another local historian, William P. Gates, said there had not been a fatal commercial boating accident there since 1893.
Note: The author of this story spends part of each summer at Lake George and much of the information in this story comes from residents of that area as well as various media outlets.
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