By Thomas Tracy
New York Daily News
SUFFOLK COUNTY, N.Y. — A man was killed when the boat he was riding crashed into a dock, flipped through the air and slammed into a seaside home on Long Island’s West Fire Island early Thursday, said police.
The boat, outfitted with twin outboard motors, crashed at around 7:40 a.m., shocked witnesses told Suffolk County Police.
The boat overturned and skidded on land before it slammed into the house on the island’s northwest shore, aerial footage of the crash scene from News 12 Long Island show.
One of the two men aboard the boat was dead when rescuers arrived, the Islip Fire Department said. The second man suffered minor injuries, said officials. Suffolk County police identified him as Christopher Cannela, 47, and said he was the registered owner of the boat.
The house the boat smashed into was unoccupied, police said.
Firefighters commandeered a golf cart, which they used to transport the surviving man and his two dogs to a dock on the opposite side of the half-mile long island.
There, Cannela and the dogs were put aboard a fire boat and transported to the mainland. An ambulance took him to South Shore Community Hospital, and the dogs, who appeared uninjured, were given to a family member, firefighters said.
West Fire Island lies in Great South Bay between the Fire Island community of Saltaire and East Islip on Long Island itself, and a map shows it has around a dozen homes.
It was not immediately clear which of the two men on the boat was operating it when it crashed, a spokeswoman for the Suffolk County Police Department said. Police said they would impound the boat as their investigation continued, but added that no criminality was suspected in the crash.
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