Tragedy Strikes After Boat With 29 People on Board Capsizes in Underground Canal Tour
Nobody on board was wearing a life jacket.
Just 20 miles away from Niagra Falls, one of the biggest tourist attractions in the country, is the Erie Canal. The longest artificial waterway and the great public works project in North America was built between 1817 and 1825 and enabled New York City to develop as the nation's primary seaport serving as a canal system between Albany and Buffalo. Now the 524-mile stretch is a National Park, known as the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor. Every year tourists flock to the canal, exploring the historical waterway by boat. However, on Monday, a tragic capsizing of a tourist-filled boat resulted in a casualty. Click here to discover what happened, along with gripping accounts from the victims trapped under the boat.
28 visitors and a staff member were on a boat tour of an underground cave along the canal in upstate New York, run by Lockport Cave and Underground Boat Ride, CNN reports. At one point, the boat became unbalanced and flipped over.
According to Lockport Fire Chief Luca Quagliano all 29 aboard, none of who were wearing lifejackets, were thrown into the water. Of the 28, 16 were rescued by emergency crews and others got out of the water on their own.
However, one 60-year-old man got stuck underneath the boat and died. The depth of the water in the canal is five to six feet deep with a temperature of 55 degrees year round.
"By the time I realized what happened, the boat was on top of me and I couldn't find any air pockets or anything. And I'm just trying to, like, breathe because I'm underwater," survivor Daniel Morrissette told ABC's Good Morning America in an interview aired Tuesday.
According to Elizabeth Morrissette, people were panicking and yelling loudly as they were thrown into the water.
"Embark on one of America's longest underground boat rides along the Erie Canal and experience a trip of wonders," its website states. "Visitors are awestruck as they take a ride that has been described as both 'peaceful and eerie' as the boat glides through the lifeless water, illuminated only by small, sporadically placed electric lights."
Destination Niagara USA was hosting the free "familiarization tour" for hospitality employees from around the county, said Andrea Czopp, Chief Operating Officer of the group. Authorities are treating the area as a crime scene, says Lockport Police Chief Steven Abbott.
