A boat capsized near the Cape Coral Yacht Club early Saturday evening, leaving one person dead and another missing. Four people were on board the vessel when the incident occurred on the Caloosahatchee River.

Three individuals were transported to the hospital, with authorities confirming the death of one. Rescue crews are actively searching for the fourth person still missing in the water.

Bradley Johnson of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) said, “What we know is that the vessel was traveling upriver. Some type of incident caused the vessel to capsize. The occupants on board ended up in the water. There were four occupants on that vessel.”

Dive teams continue their search efforts, with plans to regroup in the morning for further operations. Johnson added, “We’re going to make sure we have a presence throughout the night. And then in the morning, we’re going to regroup with all the assets that were here earlier. So the fire department, sheriff’s office, Cape Coral Police Department, and our dive teams. We’re going to have more assets deployed here in the morning when we have more light to be able to see.”

Witnesses reported that several boaters rushed to the scene to assist, including Trevor Zamniak, who was nearby when the boat flipped.

“We looked, turned around, we saw a high-speed catamaran, and it flipped pretty much end over end behind us, and immediately we turned around, went to see if anyone needed to be rescued,” said Zamniak.

Zamniak and his friends performed CPR on a man they pulled from the water, reviving him after five minutes.

“I was on the phone with 911 just hoping that we could do everything we possibly could to give him the best chance,” Zamniak said. “He started breathing again, so hopefully we were successful, and hopefully he pulls through.”

The FWC stated that while windy conditions were present, it is too early to determine if they were a contributing factor to the incident.

 

Â