A Fort Lauderdale videographer said he may not be on the water for a while after a boat explosion left 13 people injured last week, NBC Miami reported. Abraham Alejandro said 21 people were on a 40-foot vessel to shoot a music video for artist Jaican last Thursday afternoon (October 15). Newly emerged video showed people boarding, dancing and posing on the boat as it cruised down New River.
Then “out of nowhere there was just, boom, a huge explosion went off and that’s when people started jumping off," Alejandro recalled. The explosion slammed the videographer against his seat in the boat. He added that he and the others couldn't find life jackets after the first started. The extinguisher also wasn't working. “Even myself I’m like, okay, this isn’t going to work," he said. "This is my one chance to put out the fire, everyone needs to start getting off the boat.”
Several people were rushed to the hospital to first, second and third-degree burns. As of Friday (October 16), two burn victims remain at Ryder Trauma Center for treatment. One person has life-threatening injuries. “I don’t know how I made it out like this clean, because the individual right beside me was the one that got 40 percent burn marks on him. His flesh falling off, it was pretty bad, it was gruesome," Alejandro said.
The videographer and his attorney have questions following the incident. Alejandro told NBC Miami that the boat didn't work when they first boarded, but a battery charge got the vessel started. “Why were they allowing 21 people on the boat that isn’t designed to hold that number of people?" his attorney Brion Ross said. "If there were mechanical problems from the beginning, what was our inspection process to find out?" Authorities are still investigating the cause of the incident. It's too early to determine fault.
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