Police diver, passengers testify about panic after boat crash on Lake Ontario

A former Toronto police marine unit diver testified on Tuesday about trying to help panicked passengers who were trapped in a capsized pleasure boat on the night of May 31, 2022.

Const. Todd Adams was one of the first witnesses called at the judge-alone trial for Filip Grkovski. The 41-year-old Mississauga, Ont., man is charged with two counts of impaired operation causing death, two counts of criminal negligence causing death, two counts of impaired operation causing bodily harm and two counts of criminal negligence causing bodily harm.

Grkovski was the owner of the motorized pleasure craft that struck rocks near Outer Harbour Marina on that night in May 2022, causing the boat to flip over, resulting in the deaths of 24-year-old Megan Wu of Newmarket and 34-year-old Julio Abrantes of Richmond Hill.

Adams said he was working for the marine unit when the call came in around 11:55 p.m. and made his way in a police boat toward the Outer Harbour Marina. Adams said as they approached the East Gap, he could see the boat that was flipped over. He noticed three people on shore and one man in the water, between the boat and Little Finger Island.

Adams testified he put on a dry suit and a life-jacket and jumped into the water, which was six to seven feet deep. Adams said he was able to touch the rocks and stand on them. The officer said he asked the man in the water who the owner and captain of the boat was. Adams said the man replied that he was.

Adams said he then asked the man how many people were on board. He recalled the man replied 10.

“There were six outstanding,” Adams told court.

The officer said he then heard screams coming from the boat and went over to a window in the hull of the boat that was capsized. Motioning with his hands to show the 25-centimetre, egg-like shape of the window, Adams said he saw a woman’s face right up next to the window.

“The female was screaming ‘I don’t want to die,’ panicked. I tried to calm them down, let them know we were here. I was speaking to the people inside the boat, I was able to calm them down. The woman I was speaking to said there was five people in there. Doing the math there was nine, still one unaccounted for,” Adams testified.

The officer said he told the man, who appeared to be trying to help the people on the boat, to go to shore. He then said he asked the sergeant to call the fire department.

“We needed someone to cut into the hull of the boat.”

Adams said he decided to take off his life-jacket and did some “duck dives” to see if there was any way into the boat.

Get daily National news

Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.

Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up

By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.

“You could see the boat’s rail was hooked on the rocks. I could see no possible way to us to go in. The back door of the boat was locked. I then went back to the window and spoke with the girls some more,” Adams said.

Adams said the fire department eventually arrived from the shore, wearing dry suits.

“They brought a saw. They cut a two-by-four hole in the hull, at which point we were able to extract four women,” he said.

Adams said after they got the four women out, he and another firefighter went back to the boat to look around for about 30 seconds. The officer said he then went back to the captain and asked who was outstanding.

“He told me one male and one female was still outstanding.”

The officer said he and another officer used metal bars on strings with hooks attached to drag along the bottom of the water in an effort to find more bodies. Adams said they spoke to the fire captain and came to the decision there was not much more they could do that night.

Covered in gasoline, Adams said he went home to change out of his dry suit and get his dive gear, believing he would be called in at first light.

After going home for half an hour, Adams said he was called back in to dive. He said when he arrived at work, they loaded the police boat and headed back out to the collision scene near Outer Harbour Marina. A crane had been brought in to lift the capsized boat out of the water. He said once the boat was flipped over, other officers in dry suits were able to collect two bodies.

2:04 Trial begins for Ontario man charged in deadly Lake Ontario boat crash

Andrea Miguel, one of the passengers onboard the boat that day, testified Wednesday that she and her friend Kristina Vasilyeva were at the beach at the Scarborough Bluffs when Vasilyeva got a message from a friend named Vanessa inviting them to join her on the boat.

Miguel said that she believed the boat belonged to Filik Grkovski, who was Vanessa’s boyfriend.

The pair went to Outer Harbour Marina around 4 p.m. where they met up with Vanessa and Grkowski and about ten other people who they didn’t know. Miguel said as they headed out onto Lake Ontario, they were socializing with the other people onboard and drinking mixed alcoholic drinks.

Miguel said others on the boat including Grkovski were drinking and from what she saw no one was wearing lifejackets. They then tied up to four other boats near the Toronto Islands and stayed there for hours. Miguel said she had more than ten drinks and eventually around dusk, she felt it was no longer a safe and welcoming environment.

She said drugs were brought up in the conversation and she didn’t feel comfortable being in an environment like that. “Kristina and I called a water taxi to see if they could come pick us up. We didn’t feel safe. There was a lot of tension,” said Miguel.

The taxi wouldn’t pick them up because they weren’t on land. Just before midnight, Miguel testified that they left to return to the shore. She said that on the way back, Grkovski and his friend Eddie took turns behind the wheel of the boat.

She said she was dozing off but remembered seeing Grkovski operating the boat when suddenly it began accelerating and she felt three bumps. On the third bump, the boat flipped over.

“I’m underneath the water and I just remember it being dark it was enclosed,” said Miguel. “I remember what I saw was like a wall of the boat. And then it doesn’t budge and then I felt an opening with my feet and I dive for that opening and eventually I came up to surface. I scream Kristina’s name she’s in open water. She’s telling me to get away because she thought it might blow up.”

She said they called 911 and first responders arrived. Cellphone video was also shown in court that Miguel said she posted to Snapchat that night. In one video, Megan Wu and Julio Abrantes, who were both killed that night, can be seen sitting near the bow of the boat.

“It’s traumatizing given the time I was under the boat,” said Miguel sobbing quietly. “I didn’t want to die.”

During cross-examination, Miguel was reminded that during an interview with police on June 3, 2022, she told an officer she did not remember who was driving the boat at the time of the collision.

Miguel agreed with defence lawyer Alan Gold who suggested that she was telling the truth in that June 2022 interview.

When Gold asked if Miguel ever saw Grkovski drinking while he was operating the boat, she said she couldn’t remember. Gold then reminded her that in a body worn camera interview taken on shore on the night of the crash, she told police she only saw Grkovski drinking while the boat was parked, not while he was driving.

Grkovski has pleaded not guilty. The trial continues.