MIAMI, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 Witnesses say a boat exploded near the Haulover Sandbar after the captain allegedly started the engine without opening the hatches, injuring 11 people.<\/p>\n
As previously reported<\/a>, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue responded to the explosion around 12:48 p.m. on Saturday and upgraded the incident to a Level 2 Mass Casualty Incident due to the number of injuries.<\/p>\n Witness Patrick Lee told CBS News Miami<\/a> he saw \u201cthree people fly out of the boat\u201d after the explosion.<\/p>\n Lee, a boat charter captain, said he believed the blast may have been caused by gasoline fumes igniting after the boat\u2019s engine was started.<\/p>\n See also: Boat explosion at Miami sandbar triggers mass casualty response, 11 hospitalized<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cPeople got on board, and he turned the key and didn\u2019t open the hatches, didn\u2019t turn on the blowers, and he blew people out of the boat,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n Witnesses said emergency crews surrounded the vessel within minutes as injured passengers, many suffering from burns, were carried away on stretchers.<\/p>\n \u201cI just saw a lot of them were burns all over them,\u201d Lee said. \u201cIt is quick. But it\u2019s high octane gasoline.\u201d<\/p>\n More than 25 units responded to the scene, including Fireboat 21, Ocean Rescue crews, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission<\/a>, and the United States Coast Guard<\/a>.<\/p>\n Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Battalion Chief Juan Arias urged boaters to prioritize safety as South Florida\u2019s boating season ramps up:<\/p>\n \u201cThis time of year we have a lot of boats on the water, so it\u2019s always good to make sure you have a radio with you, life vests, fire extinguishers … and also an experienced boater with you on the boat.”<\/p>\n Witnesses identified the boat being towed from the scene as \u201cNauti Nabors,\u201d with markings indicating it originated from Sherman, Texas.<\/p>\n Officials have not released the conditions of the victims, and the cause of the explosion remains under investigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 Witnesses say a boat exploded near the Haulover Sandbar after the captain allegedly started…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-265749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}