Boating Deaths are Soaring on Alabama’s Lakes and Rivers
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) – Alabama has already had its deadliest year in two decades for boaters – and summer isn’t nearly over.
Al.com reports that boating accidents in the first 6 ½ months of 2019 have killed 25 people.
Already, that makes this year the deadliest one since 1998, when 32 people died. The number of deaths so far this year is higher than year-end totals since then.
In July alone, 12 crashes resulted in six deaths.
Capt. Gary Buchanan of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency’s Marine Patrol says that investigators can’t definitively pinpoint the cause for this year’s drastic increase.
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