Girl Injured By Hit-And-Run Boat In Cocoa Beach

UPDATE: FWC says that they have located the person involved in the hit-and-run. The investigations is continuing and no other details were released.

COCOA BEACH, Florida – A 14-year-old girl was injured when she was struck by a hit-and-run boat while swimming in the Atlantic Ocean off of Alan Shepard Park in Cocoa Beach, Florida around 12:15 p.m. on Friday, July 3, 2020.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission is asking the public’s help in identifying the above-pictured boat and the man walking next to the pickup truck at the Port Canaveral boat ramp (who is not the suspect, but was boating near the area and may be a witness).

The boat, described by witnesses as having a blue hull with a white top, was traveling at a high speed when it went through a group of swimmers off Alan Shepard Park and continued northward past the Cocoa Beach Pier without stopping.

Cocoa Beach police notified the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office, Florida Fish and Wildlife, and the U.S. Coast Guard to be on the lookout for the hit-and-run boat.

Brevard County Ocean Rescue lifeguards on jet skis intercepted a suspected boat a half-mile offshore from the Cocoa Beach Pier until the Coast Guard and a BCSO helicopter arrived. But BCSO later determined that it was not the vessel involved in the hit-and-run.

A girl was injured after she was struck by a hit-and-run boat in the Atlantic Ocean off of Shepard Park in Cocoa Beach, Florida.

Lifeguards attended to the girl until Brevard County Fire Rescue crews arrived. The girl was transported as a trauma alert by BCFR crews to the Cape Canaveral Hospital helipad where she was airlifted by First Flight Helicopter to Arnold Palmer Children’s Hospital.

The boat and the boat operator have not been located at the time of publishing.

Boats can often be found nearshore off Cocoa Beach where anglers catch live baitfish to use for deep sea fishing further offshore. Cocoa Beach City Ordinance Sec. 5-33.2 prohibits motorized vessels from being operated within 500 feet of the ocean shoreline. The ordinance also provides that “all persons in the water shall be given the absolute right-of-way over vessels. All vessels within one hundred (100) feet of any person in the water shall proceed with extreme caution in such a manner as not to endanger such persons in the water.”