Nightmare trip for Tampa grads
The trip of a lifetime turned into a nightmare for more than a dozen Tampa students. The Wharton High graduates were forced to fend for their lives in Cancun.
“The boat started to rock back and forth and the front of the boat started to lift out of the water.” says Wharton High graduate Matt Koehler.
He and his friends knew they were in trouble. They were in Cancun on a graduation trip with hundreds of other kids, when the boat they were on started to sink.
They were on a double decker, motorized catamaran called the Sea Star. Mexican authorities say it was overloaded with as many as 126 kids, far more than its 80-passenger capacity.
However, Koehler and his friend Alex Bartholomew believe the number of kids on the boat that day was actually much, much higher.
“There were jet skis everywhere and boats everywhere and 250 kids in the water.
“There was no plan. No escape. Nobody could tell us what to do. It was all in our own hands,” says Bartholomew.
Students say the catamaran was taking on water fast. Making matters worse, they say there weren’t enough life jackets or rafts.
“People started screaming and a bunch of the girls started crying and really getting upset and freaking out,” said Bartholomew.
“We were basically on our own and we decided what we needed to do to save ourselves. We were the first people off the boat and everyone followed us,” Koehler said.
They say it was chaos. Kids jumping and struggling in the water, dodging jet skis and motorboats and the catamaran’s crew, they say, was nowhere in sight.
“Nobody helped us. It was ridiculous. We’re 250 kids like high school kids on a boat. There was no plan. No escape. Nobody could tell us what to do. It was all in our own hands.” says Bartholomew.
And not everyone made it to shore safely. An 18-year-old girl from Texas, Lisa Chung, got sucked underneath the boat and trapped. She later died of heart and lung failure.
Gradcity, the company that set up the trip has now suspended all snorkeling cruises for students in Cancun. It says it’s now conducting its own, independent investigation.
He and his friends now hope investigators find out what went wrong, so that it doesn’t happen again.
Tags: amp, catamaran, chaos kids, double decker, friend alex, graduation trip, high school kids, jet skis, koehler, life jackets, lifetime, lung failure, mexican authorities, motorboats, nightmare, old girl, raft, rafts, sea star, taking on water, the trip, Trip, trip of a lifetime, wharton
Posted
on
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 at 10:08 pm under