Drowned boater identified as officials urge water safety
The man who drowned in the San Jacinto River after being thrown from a boat during an allegedly drunken crash has been identified, according to medical examiner records.
Luis Gonzalez, 33, vanished into the water as the pleasure craft he was on during a Sunday night joy ride careened into a retaining wall along the east Harris County river. Search crews found his body around 6 a.m. Tuesday after spending more than 24 hours combing the river, the depth of which ranges from 20 to 30 feet.
Gonzalez died of what medical examiner officials described on Wednesday as “drowning and blunt force injuries.”
A representative of Gonzalez’s family declined to comment.
Charges of murder and intoxication assault are pending against the man who was behind the wheel of the boat Gonzalez was riding on. The 41-year-old driver, Galan Ruiz, of League City remains hospitalized after suffering severe leg trauma in the crash outside two homes near Sandbridge Court and Rio Villa Drive, according to prosecutors.
Surveillance footage of the crash showed the driver losing control of the boat and then crashing into the bulkhead, said Sean Teare, head of the Harris County District Attorney’s Office Vehicular Crimes Division
Residents at the homes were lounging in their backyard pools when the crash happened, Teare said. They rushed to save Ruiz and his girlfriend from the water, but the other passenger, Gonzalez, could not be found. After the rescue, Ruiz began going into shock as one of the good Samaritans applied a tourniquet to his leg.
“They were Johnny on the spot,” Teare said. “From what I’ve been told, it was pretty heroic.”
Ruiz was airlifted to a nearby Memorial Hermann, where he was found to have a blood alcohol content of 0.0903. Another passenger, Ruiz’s girlfriend, who was not identified, was also injured in the wreck.
The girlfriend told authorities that she had met Gonzalez hours earlier that day.
In the hours before the crash, Teare said, Ruiz and his passengers set off into the river and pulled up to a nearby beach to drink alcohol. Authorities pulled the wrecked boat from the water Monday and found beer cans, he continued.
Teare said the severity of the additional charge of murder that Ruiz is facing is because the boat crash would be his third alcohol-related offense. He was convicted of driving while intoxicated in Dallas County in 2001 and again in Harris County in 2013, court records show.
The probation for the second offense ended with unsatisfactory termination without specifying which requirement went unfulfilled, according to court documents.
In the latest case, a car and trailer belonging to Ruiz have been seized as evidence.
The San Jacinto River crash comes in the wake of the June 23 quadruple fatal wreck in Chambers County where the operator of a ski boat collided with a fishing vessel in the area of Old and Lost River east of Mont Belvieu. The driver in that crash, Jacob Breaux, 23, from Baytown, is being held on a $200,000 bond with at least three counts of intoxication manslaughter and two counts of intoxication assault with a vehicle.
Three passengers were killed in the collision, while a fourth victim died this week, state officials said Monday.
Teare urged boaters planning to hit the water during the Fourth of July holiday to wear life jackets and have someone sober behind the wheel of their vessels.
“This whole week, we’re going to have some people who start with the greatest of intentions and who want to have fun,” Teare said. “Their families are going to be left picking up the pieces. It’s so preventable.”
Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez echoed that message during a news conference Wednesday morning by warning boaters that authorities would not hesitate to issue citations for water-related violations during the holiday.
“Make sure you’re constantly keeping an eye on your children and that you’re not using alcohol during water activities,” Gonzalez said.