Late Night Boat Crash On Zoar Injures 6 Of 11 Passengers

By Andrew Gorosko

and John Voket

Six of 11 individuals who were riding in a powerboat on Lake Zoar Tuesday at around 11:15 pm were injured after the craft hit a rock outcropping in a “pitch black” section of the waterway between the Paugussett State Forest and Kettletown State park, according to a witness.

The 21-foot-long MasterCraft ski boat collided with the heavily wooded Southbury shoreline of the lake within the northern park boundary of Kettletown State Park, according to state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) spokeswoman Cyndy Chanaca.

People who were on the boat are residents of Easton, Bethel, Trumbull, Burlington, and Lakeville, according to DEEP.

Those who transported to the hospital for treatment of injuries are: Anthony Buzzanca, Jr, 22, of Easton; William Sullivan, 22, of Easton; Thomas Lane, 21, of Easton; Kristen Paolino, 19, of Trumbull; Kara Yakosh, 20, of Trumbull, and Hannah Cebry, 21, of Burlington.

Information on those people was not available from Danbury Hospital before The Bee’s deadline on Thursday morning. 

Other people on the boat who were not transported to the hospital are: Ron Basak-Smith, 22, of Easton; Jonathan Edwards, 21, of Easton; Dean Lorusso, 21, of Easton; Meghan Ledan, 20, of Bethel, and Meghan Merritt, 22, of Lakeville.

 Sandy Hook volunteer firefighters responded to the area at 11:26 pm because they had the simplest access to the accident scene. The emergency call was placed from 46 Algonquin Trail.

Five ambulances were sent to the accident. Oxford firefighters traveled to the accident via boat.

Newtown police aided the DEEP in investigating the accident.

Mary Ann Jacob, who is a Newtown Legislative Council official, said two firefighters who are neighbors in the Mohawk Trail neighborhood came banging on her door around 11:30 pm asking to use her jet ski because there was a reported boat crash on the lake adjacent to the private Sandy Hook community. But Ms Jacob offered to take the firefighters to the scene in her own powerboat instead.

She said as soon as she exited her home she could “hear screaming” and commotion from out on the water, and she could see the boat floating with seven individuals still on the craft. Ms Jacob said two persons on the boat appeared “severely injured,” and that four others from the disabled boat made it to shore, and all were visibly injured in some way.

She and the two unidentified firefighters transported six injured victims to Cedarhurst Beach where a Newtown Police officer and an Newtown EMT had arrived. Ms Jacob said several ambulances began arriving a short time later to begin treating the victims.

At the same time, another Mohawk Trail resident towed the damaged boat with five apparently uninjured individuals to shore, where she said they were questioned by police. She said all of the uninjured people on the boat were wet and shaken from the incident, and that she provided sweatshirts and towels.

Ms Jacob said that the area where the crash occurred is a “known danger area on the lake,” and that she believed the boat involved was “totaled,” with large chunks of fiberglass hull ripped open and parts of the craft “torn off.” She also said there were pieces of tree in the boat.

A lifelong recreational boater and who has lived on the lake shore for 17 years, Ms Jacob said this was the first incident of this severity she has heard of in the area. She described the boat involved as a 2005 MasterCraft.

She said the uninjured occupants of the boat at one point asked her for a ride back to the Shady Rest community where they said they launched the boat earlier in the evening, but police initially refused to release them from the scene. Some of the individuals involved were permitted to call for rides from Ms Jacob’s home.

“You can hear boats flying down that stretch at full speed during the night when it’s pitch black down there,” Ms Jacob said. “You can tell they are speeding from the sound of their motor.”

Investigation Continues

State environmental conservation police officers are continuing their investigation into the accident. They have been assisted by Newtown and Southbury emergency services.

Besides the Newtown Volunteer Ambulance Corps, ambulances from Southbury and Danbury went to the accident.

The environmental conservation police are being assisted in the probe by the state’s boating accident reconstruction unit, Ms Chanaca said. No other information on the accident was available from DEEP on July 7. The results of such boating accident investigations typically are disclosed within several weeks, according to Ms Chanaca. 

The small beach and boat anchorage in the area on the Newtown shoreline at Algonquin Trail provided the simplest access to the emergency, which had occurred across the lake in Southbury. The lake is an impoundment on the Housatonic River.

Newtown Underwater Search and Rescue (NUSAR) also was dispatched to the incident, but it was turned back before it arrived at the accident scene. NUSAR Chief Mike McCarthy said NUSAR learned from firefighters that the accident scene had been stabilized, so it was not necessary to proceed there.

Sandy Hook Fire Chief Bill Halstead said that three of the six injured people were transported to the hospital on advanced life support status, reflecting the seriousness of their injuries.

Twenty-two Sandy Hook firefighters responded to the incident, he said.

When firefighters arrived at the scene, the victims were either on the Southbury shoreline or in the boat, he said. 

Newtown police aided the state environmental conservation police at Algonquin Trail.