Boat explosion: Father, child among 9 injured in fire on Weatherford Lake, officials say
The boat had just been fueled on Saturday afternoon at Weatherford Lake’s marina, and its operator was steering to the lake’s main body with eight passengers when the vessel exploded, authorities said.
The operator, a 40-year-old Weatherford man, was cut and scraped, but as a fire erupted from fuel vapors in its hull, others on the boat were burned.
The man’s 2-year-old daughter, a 58-year-old man from Aledo, a 60-year-old man from Beaumont, a 13-year-old girl from Aledo and a 43-year-old woman from Mineral Wells suffered significant burns and were taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital, said Captain Brandon Rose, a Texas Game Warden spokesman.
The three other people suffered minor injuries in the explosion.
The patients who were taken to Parkland had second-degree burns at worst, Rose said. Forty percent of one passenger’s body was burned in the explosion. The condition of each was stable on Sunday.
The explosion occurred about 3:15 p.m., and the boat sank near buoys at the opening to the Weatherford Lake Marina from the lake’s main body, authorities said.
Crews recovered the sunken boat. The State Boat Accident Forensic Reconstruction and Mapping Team is investigating.
This story was originally published August 29, 2020 at 8:23 PM.
