An Australian man was killed on a boat trip when a whale struck the vessel in what officials described as an “absolute freak accident.”
Stuart Collings, and his brother-in-law Darren Curmi, 53, were on a getaway boat in the waters off Sydney’s Botany Bay on Saturday morning when a whale hit the boat and sent the two men overboard, 9News Australia reported.
Collings, 61, passed out while Curmi, 53, held him for nearly 45 minutes until emergency crews responded to the bay.
It was an “extraordinary accident”, state Emergency Services Minister Jihad Dib said, according to Sky News.
“The runaway vessel may have struck or impacted the whale, causing the boat to tilt, ejecting the two men,” NSW Police said in a statement.
Police were alerted to the terrifying incident when they received a report of an unmanned boat driving in circles and saw two men in the water.
“At approximately 6am, Water Police responded to a report of two people in the water after an unoccupied boat was found floating in the waters off the Cape Banks at La Perouse,” New South Wales Police said in a statement.
Stuart Collings has been identified as killed after falling from a boat on Saturday.FacebookDarren Curmi (right) was helped out of the water by witnesses before he was taken to hospital in a stable condition for monitoring.9News/YouTube
Video captured the fleeing boat jumping through the choppy water.
Paramedics pulled Collings onto a lifeboat and performed CPR but were unsuccessful and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
Witnesses helped Curmi out of the water before he was taken to a hospital in stable condition for observation, police said.
People who were on the water at the time of the incident reported seeing several large marine mammals.
9News/YouTube
“There are a lot of whales out there,” said Acting Superintendent of Police Siobhan Munro.
“It’s not unheard of for a whale to crash next to a boat, which is obviously caught quite often. So this is a tragic accident but not one that I think would be… unexpected.”
“We were fishing out there and we heard a big bang early in the morning, and then we saw a boat sinking and something big coming out of the water,” George Mourad told 9News.
Detectives have begun an investigation and are awaiting a report from the coroner’s office.
Police were alerted to the terrifying incident when they received a report of an unmanned boat driving in circles and saw two men in the water. 9News/YouTube People who were on the water at the time of the incident reported seeing several large marine mammals. 9News/YouTube
Last year, five women were killed when a whale rammed a seabird watching boat in New Zealand.
The bodies of the five women were found in the ship.
They were part of a larger group of bird watchers who were all women over the age of 50, the report on the September 2022 incident said.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
