Boat fire erupted during filming of music video, cameraman says
FORT LAUDERDALE — Two people remained hospitalized with serious burns Friday after a boat erupted in flames on a trip to make a music video.
Twenty-one people were packed onto the 41-foot Wellcraft when it caught fire Thursday on the New River in Fort Lauderdale. Thirteen were hurt, many of them pulled from the water by passing boaters.
Abraham Alejandro, 25, said he was the cameraman making the video for musical artist Jaican. He said he was right next to the person who was hit hardest by the blast, which he said came out of nowhere without any warning.
They had stopped for gas just five minutes before the blast, he said.
“At the moment of the explosion, it came out of nowhere. Just — BOOM,” Alejandro said. “It was like something in a movie.”
People around him scrambled to find life vests so they could jump into the water and escape the flames, he said. But there were no life vests, preservers or rafts on board, he said.
When the chaos broke briefly, Alejandro said he noticed a fire extinguisher on the boat. He tried to battle back the inferno, but the canister was empty, he said.
Alejandro said he’s shot videos
on boats before and knows how to handle himself when things go awry. But the lack of any safety equipment on the boat is what made the situation deteriorate so quickly.
“I realized after theway they handled the situation was unsafe, the boat owners, the artist, the whole situation,” he said. “That’s now how you handle it, with all those people on a boat with no life gear or fire extinguisher.”
Alejandro and his fellow videographer who flew a drone for the video were trying to help people off the boat.
Alejandro said he lost thousands of dollars in camera equipment, but was happy to have made it out alive and mostly uninjured.
“Just glad to have made it out alive,” he said on Instagram. “This is extremely traumatizing and I learned a lot today. Thank the Lord I made it out alive. I lost all my camera gear, but I still have my life and I’ll bounce back fromthis crap.”
The cause of the fire is still under investigation by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
The boat erupted about 2 p.m. near Lauderdale Marine Center, on the south fork of the river. Passengers were thrown into the water or jumped to escape the flames. Of the 13 people hurt, seven were hospitalized.
Five have since been discharged from Broward Health Medical Center. Two were taken to the Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami.
Authorities have not disclosed who owned the boat or identified the 21 passengers.