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Girls Hurt In Fairfield Tubing Accident Moved To Yale-New Haven Hospital

FAIRFIELD, Conn. — Two teenage girls who were injured when they slammed into the side of a yacht while tubing off the coast of Jennings Beach remained hospitalized Monday, according to Fairfield police. 

Fairfield's Jennings Beach

Fairfield's Jennings Beach

Photo Credit: File

Both girls were taken Sunday to Bridgeport Hospital but later transferred to Yale-New Haven Hospital, where one is in critical but stable condition and the other is stable condition, Lt. James Perez said. 

The girls, from Long Island, N.Y., were out with on Tranquillo, a 69-foot motor yacht, with their families on Sunday. They were being pulled in a two-person tube by an inflatable boat that was 9.5 feet by 5.4 feet, Perez said.

An adult was driving the skiff when the accident occurred in the waters of Long Island Sound about an eighth of a mile off Jennings Beach, he said.  

Police do not believe that drugs or alcohol were factors in the crash, which occurred at about 4:30 p.m. Sunday, Perez said.  Minutes into the ride, the girls, still aboard the tube, struck the side of the Tranquillo and were thrown into the water face down, Perez said. 

People aboard the yacht jumped into the water to rescue the two girls, who were unconscious, and brought them aboard the yacht, Perez said. They also called for emergency help.

When Fairfield police Marine Unit Officer Keith Perham arrived at the scene of the accident, he was directed to the yacht, which was anchored near the shore, he said.  

Perham, with the assistance of the Bridgeport Police Marine Unit, boarded the Tranquillo and found the two unconscious teenage girls.  

They stabilized the girls for marine transport to South Benson Marina, where Fairfield Fire and AMR personnel were standing by. The girls were transported by AMR to Bridgeport Hospital and later taken to Yale, Perez said.

Fairfield police released no further details on the girls or their injuries. 

Bridgeport Police responded from the nearby Gathering of the Vibes concert with a moose boat, a Zodiak boat and a jet ski. 

“The quick actions of the private boaters that pulled the girls from the water and called 911 directly impacted the speed and effectiveness of medical care," Assistant Fire Chief Scott Bisson said. 

Emily Fedorko, a 16-year-old from Greenwich, was killed and another girl seriously injured in a similar accident last summer. They were run over by the boat that had been towing them on a tube on Long Island Sound off the coast of Greenwich Point. 

The investigation was turned over to the the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection's Boating Accident Reconstruction Unit, with six or seven people working on the probe Monday, Perez said. 

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