Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - PARASAIL NIGHTMARE, Mom DEAD, Husband: 'Fun is not worth a life'

Episode Date: March 9, 2024

An Illinois mom is killed and two children are seriously injured while parasailing. A storm blew in, affecting the stability of the boat towing the family. Now, the husband of a 33-year-old woman has filed lawsuits naming multiple parties.  A preliminary incident report from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission says boat captain Daniel Couch,49, cut the towing cable when the parasail “pegged” in a high gust of wind, threatening to drag his boat. This resulted in the parasail and the individuals being drug “through and across the surface of the water” and slammed into an abandoned Florida Keys bridge. Supraja Alaparthi, 33, was dead before another boat captain untangled her and the children from the parasail cables and rushed them to a Marathon restaurant where crews had set up a staging area. Joining Nancy Grace Today: Mark McCulloh - Parasailing Safety Expert; Chairman, Parasail Safety Council   Michael A. Winkleman - Maritime Attorney (Miami, FL), Lipcon, Margulies & Winkleman, Expert on Maritime and Cruise Ship Law; X: @cruiseshiplaw  Dr. Angela Arnold – Psychiatrist, Atlanta GA. Expert in the Treatment of Pregnant/Postpartum Women, Former Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Obstetrics and Gynecology: Emory University, Former Medical Director of The Psychiatric Ob-Gyn Clinic at Grady Memorial Hospital Robert Crispin – Private Investigator: “Crispin Special Investigations;” Former Federal Task Force Officer for United States Department of Justice, DEA and Miami Field Division; Former Homicide and Crimes Against Children Investigator; Facebook: Crispin Special Investigations, Inc. Tim O'Hara - Reporter, The Key West Citizen See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. The loving husband of a woman who was killed during a parasailing accident, and trust me, I'm using air quotas on that, down in the Florida Keys on Memorial Day, speaks out for the first time, telling about the horrific day his wife, just 33 years old, in the prime of her life, their 10-year-old son and the nine-year-old nephew were all three cut loose from their parasail by the captain after they were caught in wind gusts up to 30 miles an hour. Of course, the device crashes back down to earth, hitting the old seven-mile bridge down in the Keys near Marathon, Florida, killing the mommy.

Now we learn the dad was literally screaming and begging the captain to save his wife, son, and nephew. Well, that didn't happen. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Crime Stories and on Sirius XM 111. I'm just imagining that scene. I can just imagine my husband, David, out on the water with me up in the air, parasailing with the twins. Then things go sideways and him down there begging, begging, screaming for the captain to save us. Me looking down if I could from up in the air as 30 miles an hour winds toss me and the twins around. I can hardly even think about it.

As a matter of fact, it's reminding me of something. We went on a trip with my mother, the twins, Dave and I, out to Vegas. Not to gamble. I do not like to gamble. I feel like I might as well throw my money out on 3rd Avenue. But we like to go see the shows. We like to go hiking down in Red Rock Valley. Go to all the fancy restaurants, really have a good time. Well, we were also, okay, we went to Hoover Dam, which was awesome and got a tour of that.

But the day we went to Hoover Dam, we were supposed to go on a helicopter tour. And the twins had never been on a helicopter. I had only been on them when my investigator would fly me to various jails across the southeast to interview defendants. So this is the first time on a helicopter and you go down into the Grand Canyon and then you have lunch down there and you hike and then it brings you back. That day, the winds, I believe they were in the upper 20s to 30s. And David, who has a level head, said, we are not going up in a helicopter. I'm like, David, look, they wouldn't take us up if they thought it wasn't safe. And he said, I don't care what they say, we're not going. Do you know, several months after we came back,

that there was a fatal helicopter crash with the same company in Vegas going out in wind gusts? The point is, this mom and dad probably relied on the captain to say and decide whether it was safe. And their mommy and the son and the nephew end up way up in the air in wind gusts of 30 miles an hour. And you should see that bridge. It is old. It is cement. The thought of them crashing into that, that's devastating. In the last days, the dad speaks out about his ordeal. Take a listen to our friends at GMA Good Morning America. Your wife, your son, your nephew, they get into the parasail and they take off. What happens next? The captain started kind of like I mean concerned and his actions was kind of like terrified and I was also scared. When the boat's crew could not

reel in the parasail, the captain made the decision to cut it loose. What were you thinking when you saw him cut the rope? Whatever he was doing, it was concerning for all of us. I didn't exactly see when he did, when he cut the rope. It was kind of like, I mean, terrifying and horrible moments. What happened to this beautiful young mom, just gorgeous young mom, so loving, so dedicated to her children. Why did this have to happen? Let's start where I like to start every single jury trial if I can, and that is with the 911 call. Listen.

911, where is your emergency? I'm on the ocean by Pigeon Key. A parasailor's line just broke free in there in the water. Okay, hold on a second. Let me see. Is 4110 on the water? Seven Mile Bridge, you said? Yes.

You're right near Pigeon Key. Pigeon Key? There's a boat on the scene. I'm not physically there. My husband called and he said to report it. He's on the water and I'll give you his number if you need. Okay, so it's a parasail? Yep, they were parasailing and the line just snapped and the boat's trying to get to the person.

Line snapped. Okay. And what end of the bridge do you know? Oh, it's by Pigeon Key. Okay. Let me see if I've got somebody in the water. What is your name? Okay. And what end of the bridge do you know? Oh, it's by Pigeon Key. Okay. Let me see if I've got somebody in the water. What is your name? Okay. I'm going to try to get them out there. So there were, how many subjects were on the parasail, do you know, or in the water? I have no idea. He's just in the distance, and it sounds like several boats are trying to get to the person,

but he just wanted to report it, not knowing what's going to happen next. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. A gorgeous young mother tries to entertain her children, taking them on this parasailing excursion, this adventure. How many times have we done something like that? I haven't done parasailing, but I've done other things. And she's dead.

She is dead. I've got an all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now. Michael Winkleman, high-profile maritime attorney joining us out of Miami at Lipkin, Margulis, and Winkleman. He's quite the expert. Dr. Angela Arnold, renowned psychiatrist joining us out of the Atlanta jurisdiction. You can find her at AngelaArnoldMD.com. Robert Crispin, talk about a gumshoe. Private Investigator Extraordinaire at Crispin Special Investigations. You can find him at CrispinInvestigations.com. Dr. Tim Gallagher. A very special guest joining us, Mark McCullough, a parasailing safety expert and the chairman of Parasail Safety Council. But first, Tim O'Hara joining us, reporter with the Key West Citizen.

Tim O'Hara, I want you to hear a little bit more of this 911 call. Listen, Tim. 911, where is your emergency? I'm with the Seven Mile Bridge just east of Mosier's Channel. There was a parasailor north of the bridge, and the rope broke, and he's loose. Okay, I've got a call on this already. I just want to ask you a couple questions. Hold on.

Okay. Additional caller. Okay, and can you tell me it was just one male we don't know we oh we were it was one person in the parent sale one okay so there's one person in the water now he's being drugged across the water by the sale being drugged okay and it's at mojo's channel water mojo channel okay we're gonna we've got deputies and fwc and everybody on the way out there i'm gonna get the medical out there to stage for them so thank you tim o'hara joining me from the key west citizen tim thanks for being with us what happened you

know you have multiple boats saying you know we see this what they had thought that the line had snapped we later found out it was cut, but it had snapped. Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You know, Tim O'Hara talking to you is like drinking from a fire hydrant. It's just so much at once. I can't take it all in. You said, okay, first we thought the Paris, first, first, Mark McCullough joining us, Paris sailing safety expert.

I know you can hear Tim O'Hara, a crack reporter with the Key West Citizen. What is he talking about? What did he just say? Well, it sounded like what the person that called 911 thought they saw the parasail snap, a line snap. So that means while the person, parasailing means you get into some contraption with a sail, like off a sailboat behind you, and you're attached to a cord, like you're skiing behind a boat, and then the cord is attached to, I guess, a speedboat, and the speedboat takes off, and then you're, in theory, supposed to go up in the air and sail behind it. Is that what you call parasailing?

That's correct. Okay. Then what is it when we drive past the water and we see people out there on a, it looks like a little floaty, like a boogie board, and they've got a sail on it and they're guiding it with their hands and their body. What is that? That's not parasailing. What is that?

It's like sailboarding. Sailboarding. Okay, okay. So we're not talking about that. We're talking about parasailing. I'm repeating to you questions that I've gotten on Insta, Twitter, and Facebook. So don't kill the messenger. And also, I wanted to hear the difference, too.

So that's called, what did you say, Crispin? Is that you jumping in? No, that's kiteboarding. That's kiteboarding, yes. Kiteboarding. Okay. Parasailing, a whole other animal. Now, Tim O'Hara, joining us, Key West Citizen, did I hear you correctly that at first, what,

onlookers, witnesses thought the cord had snapped? Correct. And what turned out to be three people in the harness of that were basically being blown across a sort of a bay area in an area where there is a seven-mile bridge, a very large concrete and steel structure. So what does that mean, Mark McCullough, for the line to just snap? Well, most of the accidents that result in deaths have been in high winds where the line actually disconnects from the boat. Disconnects?

Yeah, well, it snaps. I mean, the line can snap. Okay, see, to me, the meaning of snap means the cord breaks. But according to you, snap means it comes disengaged or unattached to the boat. Which one is it? Disengaged from the boat. Okay, Tim O'Hara, is that what you meant? I thought that meant that the cord breaks in the air. I'm sorry. It broke free from the vessel. Okay, and that'Hara, is that what you meant? I thought that meant that the cord breaks in the air. I'm sorry.

It broke free from the vessel. Okay, and that's called snap. A snap? Yeah, it would snap off or break off or disengage. So it disengaged from the boat. So line... It says parasail slang. I hear you.

So line snap means the cord becomes disengaged from the boat, not that it breaks. I would say it broke. It broke from the boat. So now you have three people basically floating in the air. So it became disengaged from the boat. All right. They're not tethered to the boat anymore. crime stories with nancy grace we now learn that mommy's husband begged the captain to help his wife listen to our friends at good morning america tree is holding the captain to help his wife. Listen to our friends at Good Morning America. Tree is holding the captain's leg, begging him to please go out there and save them. And he goes ahead and tells him, don't worry, the bridge will help.

That's where the pair said that. Yes. He said to you, the bridge will help? Yeah. Clinging to the captain's leg, begging him to save his wife, son, and nephew. The captain reportedly said, don't worry, the bridge will help before he cuts them loose. Back to you, Tim O'Hara. You then said you think the captain of the boat cut it? Yes. Why? Well, that's going to be the biggest question as part of this criminal investigation. That and the weather is going to be the two biggest factors going into this investigation.

Tell me about the weather, because a storm seemingly propelled them. Who is them? All I know is about the 33 year old mom supriya and her nephew nephew nine years old vishy and 10 year old son screa correct correct whoa so you've got a nine and a 10 year old little boys up in the air parasailing in a storm near a cement bridge do i have that much right? Yes. That's correct.

But also, we are talking about Florida where storms do sort of like these little, you know, I will call them squalls. You know, they can brew up fairly quickly. Now, you would think you would see this somewhere in the distance and maybe or board this trip. Yes. Okay. Can I just point something out to everybody? Robert Crispin, private investigator, joining me out of Florida right now. Has anybody heard of the Farmer's Almanac or is that just me? Because since I was a little girl,

little, little, we had a copy, black and white copy of of the Farmer's Almanac always in the house. My grandmother had one. My great-grandmother had one. So you have an idea about what the weather is going to be. Now, this happened on what day, Tim O'Hara? What day did this happen? I've got May 30, Memorial Day. Correct.

We didn't know there was going to be a storm? So, Nancy, I'll tell you, you know, of course, we have all heard about that. But today's technology and we're in rainy season and everybody knows rainy season. It rains every single day and these walls come up out of nowhere. And this is just an epic failure at the helm by the captain on so many different levels from that trip should have probably never went down or that captain saw that and those people should have been brought down immediately. But he elected to keep them up. And to you, Michael Winkleman, a high profile lawyer joining me out of Miami,

Michael, they didn't know there was going to be a major storm that propelled this young mother and a 9 and a 10-year-old little boy, and now the mom is dead. The singular comment that I'll make in defense of these operators was that these storms do come out of nowhere, but I find that to be such a feeble excuse because Florida statute requires them to have weather determining capabilities out there so they can know exactly what's coming. Combine that with a small dose of common sense, which is looking around and seeing the storms coming and things like this never happen. And look, this is what I do for a living. I just finished a case out of Mexico where a woman was at a resort down there. One of these fly-by-night operations took her up from the beach. You could see the storm off in the distance.

The line snapped. She's in the air for 45 minutes and ends up crashing down in the airport in Mexico. Thank goodness she survived. We successfully resolved her case. But look here. We have this beautiful 33-year-old woman. And unfortunately, the children did survive. But you have these terrible tragedies that are clearly preventable.

Clearly. You know, Michael Winkleman, just hearing you say that, you said this beautiful mom, and I said beautiful. And I don't mean just on the outside. I mean on the inside, too. Her little boy, 10 years old. Her nephew, 9 years old. There's just, you know, to you, Dr. Angela Arnold, high profile

psychiatrist joining me out of Atlanta. She was beautiful on the inside. Now she was not a parasailing expert, but this captain was. How in the H-E-L-L do you strap a 9- and 10-year-old little boy into a harness and put them up in the air on the day of a storm near a cement bridge with the unassuming mommy? Mommy probably helped harness them in. I mean, it's just all wrong. Help me, Dr. Angie. Well, you know, Nancy, what you said at the beginning about the kids trusting their mom, and then there's a trust that if you give your money to someone,

and they have a boat and a parasail, that they know what they're doing. Otherwise, that woman wouldn't have taken those kids up on that parasail. No way. So you automatically trust that, and it's fun. They're from Illinois. They're down in Florida for Memorial Day. And they wanted to do something different. And unless, Nancy, they're into crime like you are and I am, and they're hearing these stories constantly, then they may not think about the danger that may be lying

in one of these activities. I think you lower your guard when you're on vacation. I do too. I don't know what that phenomenon is. Guys, take a listen to our cut three, our friends at WPLG. It happened Monday evening. A witness describing a harrowing scene when bad weather blew in around 6 p.m. We're told people were parasailing when the tow line broke, sending the chute into the bridge. At least one good Samaritan in this white center console helped cut the line, getting a woman and two children out of their harnesses and onto his boat. A Marathon City official tells Local 10 the Sunset Grill on the east side of the bridge is where the victims were taken. We saw Florida Fish and Wildlife officers speaking to several people who were then escorted to their van.

Monroe County Sheriff's Office deputies also on scene. Sources say the woman in the parasail did not survive. The captain making the disastrous decision to cut the rope attaching the parasail to the boat, causing the device to crash back down to earth, hitting those cement pilings out at Old Seven Mile Bridge. Supraja pronounced dead at the scene. Her son and nephew raced to the hospital, the indifference to the consequences of his decision resulted in death and serious injuries to the two little boys. This is what went down. This family down from Illinois, they go out. OK, take it from there.

So like we already discussed, they go out. Okay, take it from there. So, like we already discussed, so they go out. They get three of them put in the harness of this. They get put up in the parasail. They are, you know, I don't know exactly how many miles off from where the bridge is, but the weather turns. As we spoke earlier, it's called pegged and I'm sure your, your parasail expert can tell you a little bit more what that means, but basically means the weather is impacting the sail so much that it is, um, uh, that it's affecting the operation of the boat. And so the captain decides at that time to cut the line, basically disengaging the

parasail from the boat. And they are now, you know, being taken by the wind in the parasail. Did you just call it pegging? That's what, that's the term they use in the, the parasail, you know, world as when basically the wind and the weather is impacting the actual operation of the boat. And that's when the captain decides to cut the line, basically freeing. And that's what's going to be a huge part of this investigation. And I'm sure investigators have or will ask that captain is, well, why did you feel the right cause of action was to cut this line? Well, Tim O'Hara, joining me from the Key West Citizen, you're absolutely correct. That is exactly what happened.

Take a listen to our cut eight. This is Trent Kelly. Florida Fish and Wildlife releasing this new report revealing the tow rope did not snap, but rather the captain cut the line tethering the three victims after a gust of wind pegged the parasail, meaning the chute turned into a sail and could have potentially dragged the boat. It says the woman and two kids were then dropped and dragged through the water by the inflated parasail through and across the surface of the water before colliding with the bridge.

Video shows Callion's white center console arriving on scene as he and passengers perform CPR before racing everyone to the docks at the nearby Sunset Grill. The kid was, he wasn't like screaming on the top of his lung, but he was letting me know, help me, help me. And we got him in the boat, you know, immediately. And then we got the other kid that was unconscious. And then we got his mom in the boat. One of the boys, just seven years old, was airlifted to Nicholas Children's Hospital Monday. The 33-year-old woman, identified as Supraja Alaparthi, died from her injuries. Straight out to our expert joining us. And we're so happy you're with us, Mark McCullough,

the Paracel Safety Council chairman. What is PEGD? Yeah, PEGD is a term that's a loosely used term. It's a slang for maxed out, meaning more specifically the Paracel's at its maximum toe angle due to extreme winds. I mean, at that point, the Parails violently swinging the back and forth like a pendulum. And, of course, the parasailers are attached there.

They're helpless to stop it from oscillating back and forth. And it's actually one of the most horrifying scenes I've ever witnessed. What do you mean by that? When did you witness this happen? Well, because I've been in the business since the 70s and I've seen just about every scenario of accident and has become an expert to this, for these type of incidences of where, you know, where a captain ends up getting caught in a wind and the line separation, or in this case, cut, which I've never heard of before. But we don't know yet all the details.

But that word pegged is rarely used, but that's what they mean by it. In this case, did the boat captain send out any distress signal using his VHF radio? Yeah, that's one of the several questions I had. You know, Channel 16 is a mariner's, you know, they can call Mayday, and that sort of takes precedence over. It's a designated distress frequency that broadcasts at the Coast Guard and other boaters and takes priority over the channels. So the big question is, why didn't he, you know, did he reach out?

That doesn't sound like it, but we'll find out. Did he? Joining us, Tim O'Hara from the Key West Citizen. Did he call distress on his radio or did he have a radio? And did he have a chase boat? I mean, I've heard of chase boats where the operation has a backup. And when I was still diving a lot all over the world, typically there is a backup in case there's some type of an accident.

Did this guy have a chase boat or did he use his VHF radio? Well, it was a single boat out there at the time, so there was no chase boat, which I will say is not uncommon for that industry, you know, to have just a single parasail boat operating out there. There's nothing in the reports or interviews I've seen so far to say, yes, that he did call Channel 16 on his marine radio. But, you know, he could have been in the throes of just trying to deal with this. Why, you know, cutting the line, steering the boat, doing all of these things, watching these people out there.

So he may not have had time because, you know, we act like this went on for half hour. This could have been all of this could have happened within, what, five, 10 minutes very quickly. You know, given the wind speed, given how far they were getting carried across the water. So it wasn't like this was, you know, even longer than this segment we're doing right now. All of this could have happened in moments. Well, I know that you said it's common that it is done, that there's not a chase boat. But just because it is done doesn't mean it should be done. And I'm just trying to figure out, I mean, I've taken a lot of looks at this bridge. It's an abandoned bridge. And I would think that you would try to stay away from big cement bridges when you go parasailing. Well, and maybe that's the will of our state legislature this time to say,

maybe we need to push these boats further out where you're, I don't know, eight, ten miles. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting on a state legislature to do anything. But to me, it just makes common sense. I mean, Marmacola, why are we going to wait on the Florida state legislature to tell a boat operator what is safe and not safe? Because you'll be waiting until you're blue in the face. Hell will freeze over before you get a legislature to do anything. Half of them are probably making money off parasailing. So that is not going to happen anytime soon.

So, Mark, why would we? I mean, isn't it just common sense that you don't parasail near a big cement abandoned bridge? Yeah, let's start back with the legislature because I was the one who originally pushed the legislation to do regulations, but I had it when it was so strict. I actually had a distance based on the height of the tow, and they just ignored it because the parasail operators sort of started lobbying against what I had tried to push

as very strict regulations. And, yeah, you're right. It was, you're not going to, no, they're not going to do anything. There's too much responsibility. I mean, I only say that because I was a lobbyist briefly for the district attorney at the Georgia State Assembly. I did that, I think, two sessions. And I begged. I said, please let me try murders

and get me out of politics. And it was anti-crime issues. But, you know, they didn't want to hear about any of that. Let me go to our guest joining us, Dr. Tim Gallagher. What were the injuries that this young mom suffered that led to her death? Most likely blunt impact injuries, but we cannot rule out that the woman died from drowning. And then we also have to add in, and you may not like it, but is it a natural cause when she had a medical event, you know, before the impact in the water and before she drowned? She ran into the bridge. She slammed into a cement bridge. She's dead. She either died from blunt force injuries,

and I'm just a JD. I don't even know what I'm saying. But I know she either died from blunt force trauma right there with her son and her nephew watching, or she got hit and went into the water, and that sail, that tether, dragged her through the water and it drowned her. It's one of those two things. Well, absolutely. That's your impression.

But we have to look at it from a scientific point. You know, we have to also include natural disease in with our gestalt opinion. Maybe she fell down the steps. Well, I mean, it's a low possibility, but we do have to include it. And that's just how the science is. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. The husband has now filed a lawsuit against the captain, his colleague, the boat company, and the marina, claiming they didn't even check weather reports, and those reports would have prevented them from sailing,

that the captain did not give them safety equipment, including life jackets. Oh, dear Lord in heaven, they were up in the air without life jackets and did not properly bring down the parasail after losing control. There were so many opportunities to stop this tragedy of a little boy losing his mom forever, but it seems to be there was one failure after the next, after the next. The dad now advising families taking vacations this year to take precautions and ask adventurers and ask questions when you go on so-called port adventures. Don't just rely on what these people are telling you. You don't know them and they just want to make some money off you. They're not worried about you or your children. So, Mark McCullough, let me understand something. Why would he cut the cord? How would that possibly help anything? Well, we don't know the circumstances,

but that's not something I've ever trained anybody and I'm not even sure any other operators ever trained someone to cut a tow line because... You totally give up control of the line. Yeah. When you cut the line, you lose control. And that's it. I mean, these boats are very strong. The line's very strong.

Heck, to blow a hole in that parachute would take about an 80-mile-an-hour to 100-mile-an-hour wind. So you've got a lot of things. The captain has a lot of things at their resources. The fact that these newer vessels are much bigger, stronger, heavier. And the fact that you'd cut a tow line. I don't care if you're being dragged backwards or panicking because maybe there's water coming in over the back end of the boat. There are just no circumstances in which someone would cut a line that I know of. Well, he did it. And when you cut the line, what happens then, Mark McCullough, once you cut that line?

Well, then now you've got no control. Now the wind takes over. And as what happened is that they probably glided for quite a ways before they hit the water. And we don't know how long they were in the water being dragged backwards but I can tell you in the past cases that I've investigated where we've had water landings nine times out of ten the person drowns because that water just covers you and you can hardly breathe like I said it's like being waterboarded you can't breathe and and as a doctor good doctor said is it yeah she could have had a condition where you know that maybe she couldn't catch her wind or catch it or she was, you know, scared, panicked, whatever. You mean drowned?

Yeah. I don't know that I would blame her and her fake asthma you guys have cooked up as to why. I mean, think of somebody skiing face down, being pulled through the water behind a speedboat. There's no way you can breathe the water at that velocity being pumped right into your face. And here's the kicker. Not the first time this has happened. As a matter of fact, right there in Florida. Take a listen to our cut 13, our friend Rob Nelson at ABC. It's the terrifying moment caught on camera.

Watch as a parasail containing two riders breaks loose from the boat leading it and slams into two nearby condominiums in Panama Beach, Florida. All before crashing into a parking lot full of cars. We are at the Commodore and two parasailers just smashed into the top of it. This morning, two 17-year-old Indiana girls, Alexis Fairchild and Sydney Good, remain in critical condition at an area hospital. Initial reports from investigators say that on Monday, an afternoon storm developed with strong winds and that these winds kept the chute aloft and several attempts to winch the riders back onto the vessel failed.

The company who ran the outing, Aquatic Adventures, is declining to comment. The very popular vacation sport is an industry with very little regulation. Just this May, Florida legislators failed to pass a bill that would have put new safety standards in place. One of the biggest opponents, Aquatic Adventures, the owner of the boat involved in this incident. That incident also happened in Florida with two teen girls. I've got so many similar transactions here where the same thing happens. Parasail becomes unhooked, flies untethered for 45 minutes. It goes on and on and on.

15-year-old Amber Mae White dies when wind gusts snap the line. Parasailing with sister. I mean, there's so many of these incidents. But what it boils down to right here, Dr. Angela Arnold, renowned psychiatrist out of Atlanta, what happens when a child this young, nine, loses their mother. Nancy, there is a wonderful study that was published in 2018 from the American Journal of Psychiatry. It was a longitudinal study that looked at children who had lost their parents or a mother from all different kinds of deaths, suicide, trauma, natural causes. During the first two years after a child loses a parent,

they are at a very high risk of suffering from depression. So it's important for whoever the surviving parent is to be looking out for this and treat it because actually what they also found in this study is that this affects the child socially and mentally for years into their life. But the first thing they have to look for, the first thing they need to be looking for in these children who have lost a parent are signs and symptoms of depression in that first two years,

and they need to jump on it and treat it and not wish it away. Robert Crispin joining me, Crispin Special Investigations also joining us from Florida, along with Michael Winkleman, maritime lawyer in Florida. You know, Crispin, I think when people go on vacation, and I'm sure you see this a lot in Florida, your defenses are lowered. You don't think you're going to have a crash when you rent that moped or that bird or that parasailing adventure or scuba or whatever it is you're doing. You don't. There's so many incidents like that happening at vacation spots. I don't, it's, you know, I was just down in Florida and we went to Gatorland or Gator World and they had a

zip line over the Gators. So what I'm saying is these people probably had no idea how dangerous this really was. Listen, Nancy, this all comes down to one person. And in every single one of these events that we have spoken about comes back to one person, the captain. The captain is ultimately responsible for who's on his vessel or who is associated with his vessel, whether you're parasailing, you're diving, whatever you're doing, that captain is 100% responsible. In each of these situations, the captain made a poor decision, absolutely made a poor decision. Those boats never should have been out in that wind. Those kids that got detached from their tethers on the other situations we talked about, that's an equipment failure. I guarantee you, in those investigations, you're going to find faulty equipment.

I guarantee you, in this particular situation, and I boat in South Florida every weekend. It's a epic failure on the captain's part. And who he or his observer instructed to cut that line was the ultimate demise of those three people. Agree or disagree, Michael Winkleman? Oh, I completely agree with everything you said, in particular, Nancy, that I think when people go on these vacations, they do let their guard down. And you have these inherently dangerous activities that are putting families at risk and not enough is done to make them safe. I think even before you get to captain operation and blaming them, it is an issue of regulation. And I think regulation has become such a political hot button issue. But here, let's all like take a little spoonful of common sense. We want to regulate

parasail operators so that they can do this safely so that we're not on this show talking about terrible tragedies like this. This is where common sense regulation needs to come into play. Nancy, the beauty of all this is the captain always has the right to say, no, we're not going. Just like your pilot in bad weather, when you sit on the runway and everyone on that plane is upset that that thing's not taking off. You know why? Because that guy in the left seat, that captain, he said, no, it's no. And a lot of these should have been a no. We now learn the husband of a mommy who dies parasailing with her son and nephew literally clung to the boat captain's leg, begging him not to cut the mommy and the son free. But he did. Now mommy's dead. Where does it stand right now? Take a listen to

this, our friends at CBS. I can't help but think that if the people we trusted from the parasailing company and the Captain Pips Marina had done their jobs, my wife would still be with us today. This family, they previously filed a lawsuit against the parasailing company. This latest and second lawsuit is against the Captain, the Mate and Captain Pips Marina and Resort. That's where the parasail company operated from. The captain of the boat was arrested and charged with manslaughter in September. We wait as justice unfolds. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.