By Yvonne Wenger and Sean Welsh
The Baltimore Sun
BALTIMORE — Two Baltimore women were killed early Sunday when a 37-foot boat struck a concrete abutment just south of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, emergency officials said.
Six people were hospitalized in the crash, Maryland Department of Natural Resources Police spokeswoman Candy Thomson said.
The women who died were identified as Windy Lawson, 41, and Kimberly Ervin, 45.
The crash was first reported to authorities at 3:08 a.m., Thomson said. She said authorities recovered one of the women’s bodies at 8:20 a.m. and the second just before 1 p.m.
The group had gone out for dinner and drinks Saturday night at the Hard Yacht Cafe in Dundalk, where they met the boat’s operator, Thomson said. Operator Timothy Wilson, 55, invited the group for a ride to Fells Point, where they spent several hours in the bars, Thomson said.
The crash occurred as the boat approached the Key Bridge on the way back to Dundalk, she said. The boat, a Sea Ray Sundancer registered to an owner from Baltimore, struck one of four concrete abutments on the Dundalk side of the Patapsco River, Thomson said.
The structures are situated along the shipping channel, 50 yards from the bridge, to prevent it from being struck by boats. The bridge, which carries Interstate 695 over the Patapsco River, was not damaged, the Coast Guard said.
Four of the eight people on board the boat were ejected, the Coast Guard said in a statement.
Two people were taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, two were taken to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center and two were taken to University of Maryland Medical Center.
The individuals involved do not appear to have been wearing life jackets, Thomson said.
Baltimore County police and fire departments, the Coast Guard, Baltimore police, Maryland State Police, the Maryland Transportation Authority and a Sonar dive team from Anne Arundel County responded to the accident. A Coast Guard helicopter crew from Atlantic City, N.J., located the first missing boater, the Coast Guard said.
Investigators are working to determine the cause of the crash, Thomson said.
Two other people died in water-related mishaps in Maryland during the weekend.
The body of a Salisbury man was recovered Saturday after an accident on the Wicomico River, Natural Resources Police said. Kenneth Randolph Vickers Jr., 50, was ejected when his boat struck a dredge pontoon, witnesses told police. A woman on board was treated for injuries.
Authorities were also searching for one of two brothers reported missing in the Chesapeake Bay. Three people were swimming in deep water near Cove Point in Calvert County, witnesses told police. A juvenile made it back to shore, police said, but the two men disappeared. On Sunday afternoon, crews recovered the body of one of the men.
Fourteen people have died in water-related accidents in Maryland this year.
#CG, partner agencies respond to 1 dead, 6 injured and 1 still missing from boating accident. http://t.co/Hea8MKquXG pic.twitter.com/4IknjkVDHn
— USCG Mid-Atlantic (@uscgmidatlantic) July 26, 2015
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