A 13-year-old girl and a 51-year-old woman have died after two boats carrying a total of six people collided on Lake Rosseau near Muskoka’s Windermere Marina Wednesday evening.
Bracebridge Ontario Provincial Police received multiple 911 calls around 7:40 p.m., with witnesses describing seeing several people in the water.
“We were having dinner at about 7:30 last night and we heard a large bang and a crash,” one witness, who preferred not to be named, told Global News Thursday.
“We heard the sirens and everything else, so I came down, and there were a few friends of ours who were on the dock of the marina … and actually witnessed it.”
According to the witness, the friends who saw the crash said the two boats came “right at each other” at a high rate of speed before they hit each other and went airborne.
“One boat belly-flopped with a young lady on board, and she was unconscious, and it was doing doughnuts until somebody approached it and stopped it,” the unnamed witness said. “The other boat nosedived into the water, and that is the boat that was recovered this morning.”
When the crash happened Wednesday night, four people were pulled from the water and rushed to the hospital with injuries, including one who was later airlifted to a Toronto-area hospital with life-threatening injuries. The three others have since been released from the hospital.
A 13-year-old girl from Toronto was confirmed dead at the scene, while one woman was unaccounted for. At about 4 p.m. Thursday, police recovered the body of Donna Wiley, 51, from Oakville.
Muskoka EMS, Muskoka Lakes Fire Department, the OPP Marine Unit, the OPP Underwater Search and Recovery Unit and the OPP Aviation Unit also responded to the scene.
Anyone with information is asked to call Bracebridge OPP at 1-888-310-1122 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 1-800-222-8477.
— With files from the Canadian Press and Global News’ Catherine McDonald
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