On June 9, 2012, at Glendo Reservoir, at approximately 1935 hours, a report of a boat versus a personal watercraft (PWC) vessel accident was called in to the Platte County dispatch center. Wardens responded to the call and met the operators of both vessels at the Glendo Marina boat ramp. Warden took the lead investigator position and started to interview the people around the victims. A person standing by the boat informed me that Operator was the operator of the boat. I talked to Operator and he said that Occupant (pointed at Occupant) was the operator of the PWC. I asked Warden to talk to Operator while I talked to Occupant. Occupant was worried about his wife who was being worked on by the ambulance crew. While talking to Occupant, I smelled an alcohol odor coming from his breath. I talked to Warden and he did not smell any alcohol coming from Operator’s breath. Operator did admit to drinking one beer earlier in the day. We did not detect any alcohol odor from Operator; therefore we did not perform any field sobriety tests. Occupant did smell of alcoholic beverage but was injured and worried about his wife, so we did not perform any field sobriety test on him. Occupant did allow Warden to acquire a blood sample from him to test for alcohol in his system when we arrived at the Platte County Memorial Hospital. 

We interviewed all the people standing by the dock when the vessels came in, ambulance crew, fire crew and people involved with the accident. I asked Wardens to take the lead on the accident reconstruction since they were certified accident investigators by NASBLA. Wardens assisted with the reconstruction of the accident. 

The vessels were traveling on plane in a straight or nearly straight course. The boat overtook the PWC and the initial contact was on the back of the PWC just off center. The boat then rode up onto the back and left side of the passenger of the PWC pushing the passenger into the driver. The driver was pushed into the handle bars of the PWC. The lower right side of the boat bow contacted the PWC on the back of the seat and the handle under the seat area. This pushed the PWC down and to the right ejecting the passenger into the water. 

After the reconstruction was finished, we determined that the boat driven by operator had overtaken the PWC operated by occupant and was responsible for the accident.

Glendo                        