Four people have died, one is hospitalized and one person is still missing after a boat sank in the waters between Queens and Staten Island on Sunday, officials say.
The U.S. Coast Guard said crews were still searching for that missing individual Sunday night after five people were rescued from the boat earlier in the afternoon.
5 rescued from water near Breezy Point
Coast Guard officials say they were notified just after noon about a vessel taking on water near Breezy Point.
Rescue boats and a helicopter were sent to the area, along with divers and FDNY and NYPD units, officials say.
Five people were rescued from the boat. Four of them were unresponsive when they were pulled out of the water, according to Coast Guard officials.
Two of those rescued were airlifted to Staten Island University Hospital, and three were taken to Coast Guard Station Sandy Hook, where emergency medical services were waiting, officials say.
Four people have since been pronounced dead. The fifth person is in stable condition, police say.
Although temperatures started to warm up in the city this weekend, water temperatures were still in the mid-30s Sunday.
“If these people went into the water, and in this temperatures, I can’t picture them really lasting more than maybe 10 minutes max when they would just completely go into hypothermia,” said Roy Scott, a marine surveyor and former U.S. Coast Guard inspector.
The Coast Guard and the NYPD are investigating the circumstances surrounding the boat sinking.
Men were on fishing trip when boat sank, family says
The family of 50-year-old Cecilio Adames told CBS News New York’s Naveen Dhaliwal the friends were on a fishing trip.
“Ten o’clock in the morning, I call him. I say, ‘Everything OK?’ He say, ‘It’s a lot of wind. Everything is dangerous.’ I said, ‘Thank God you’re not bringing my daughter.’ Because other times, she go with him. He said, ‘No, it’s far away, like, 25 miles.’ And then, disappeared,” wife Francisca Adames said.
Adames’ family remembered Cecilio as their rock.
“He’s that man, and everybody will remember him as that man. Because he always risked his life trying to help other people,” daughter Alisha Adames said.
