Two teenage girls died after their WaveRunner crashed into a boat at a high speed on a lake in northeast Illinois.
A 16-year-old girl was driving the Yamaha WaveRunner with a 13-year-old girl as a passenger on Lake Marie on Tuesday evening, according to Lake County Sheriff’s Office investigators.
The WaveRunner was jetting near a channel to Grass Lake as a boat driven by a 55-year-old man entered the same area, stated the sheriff’s office.
Witnesses told cops that the girls were going at a high speed directly for the boat and that they collided around 5.15pm, ABC 7 reported.
Both teens were wearing life vests and were thrown in the water. Boat occupants immediately pulled them out of the water and found them unconscious, and provided aid and called 911.
The girls were rushed to Advocate Condell Medical Center in Libertyville, and were pronounced dead upon arrival.
They were identified as Sarina Vootkur, 16, of Lake Forest, California, and Elle Kim, 13, of Long Grove, Illinois, by the Lake County Coroner’s Office, according to WGN 9.
‘The operator, there was nothing he could do to stop the boat in time or maneuver around the WaveRunner as it approached,’ sheriff’s Deputy Chief Christopher Covelli told the TV station.
‘They immediately jumped into action and did everything they could to help those two teens,’ he said.
None of the four people aboard the boat, including the driver from Antioch, were injured.
It was not clear if the teen driver had passed a certified safety course before driving the WaveRunner.
The crash is under investigation by the sheriff’s office’s marine unit and Illinois Conservation Police.
Lake Marie is about 60 miles northwest of Chicago and near the border with Wisconsin.
The girls died nearly a year after two airboats collided on Cypress Lake in Florida and 13 people were injured.
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