Six of the eight people who died in a tragic boating accident in June during a sudden storm at Lake Tahoe had been drinking, autopsy reports showed Wednesday.
The blood alcohol concentration of the six victims ranged from a low of 0.013% to a high of 0.068%, according to the reports from the El Dorado County Coroner’s Office.
California’s legal limit for operating a recreational boat or a passenger motor vehicle is 0.080% — a threshold all of the victims were below. But experts said Wednesday that any alcohol can affect judgment, balance and coordination on the water, particularly in emergency situations or when people fall overboard.
“The wind, the sun, the pounding of the boat can lead to a fatigue, which doesn’t make you in your best physical and mental state,” said Doug Powell, the former commander of the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Department Marine Unit. “And if you add alcohol in that, any amount, you can start feeling impairment. Your body isn’t like it was if you are 100% sober.”
The U.S. Coast Guard, as part of its National Boating Safety Week in May, put out an announcement that said: “Alcohol is the leading contributing factor in fatal boating accidents, so it is recommended that you don’t drink and boat.”
The coroner’s reports, released to the Bay Area News Group under a public records request, concluded that drowning was the cause of death in all eight cases, according to Dr. Michael Berry, the pathologist who conducted the autopsy investigations.
Neither Berry or Sgt. Kyle Parker, the spokesman for the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office, responded Wednesday to questions about the autopsy findings.
The accident occurred on June 21, after Joshua Pickles, 37, an executive at DoorDash in San Francisco, took his parents, Terry Pickles and Paula Bozinovich, of Redwood City, along with seven other friends and family members out on Lake Tahoe in a 28-foot Chris-Craft boat to celebrate Bozinovich’s 71st birthday.
They left from Tahoe City in the boat, named “Over the Moon,” which Pickles and his father had purchased last year and only taken on the water twice before. The group reached Emerald Bay on Lake Tahoe’s southwestern edge. The morning’s calm weather was broken by a sudden, rough storm that roared in with strong winds, snow and waves up to eight feet high.
The group left the relative shelter of Emerald Bay and tried to make it back to a marina, according to a preliminary report released July 23 by investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board. Waves began breaking over the side of the boat, and it stalled about 50 to 100 yards off D.L. Bliss State Park, overturning when it was hit by a particularly large wave. The water temperature was 54 degrees, NTSB investigators said.
Only two of the passengers survived, Amy Friduss, 40, of Rochester, New York and her mother, Julie Lindsay, 65, of Springwater, New York. Both were wearing life jackets.
None of the others on the boat, according to the NTSB report, were wearing life jackets.
In addition to Bozinovich, and Josh and Terry Pickles, the other victims who drowned were Peter Bayes, 72, from Lincoln, Calif.; Timothy O’Leary, 71, from Auburn, Calif.; Stephen Lindsay, 63, from Springwater, New York; and Theresa Giullari, 66, and James Guck, 69, both from Honeoye, New York.
The accident is believed to be the deadliest boating incident in California since 2019, when the Conception, a 75-foot dive boat, caught fire in the middle of the night and sank near Santa Cruz Island, off Ventura County, killing 34 of the 39 people aboard.
Several key questions remained Wednesday. It is still unclear who was operating the boat. Pickles and his father were the joint owners of the vessel, which could seat 12 and was valued at $393,000, according to authorities. Both had passed a California boating safety course, required of all boat operators starting this Jan. 1, according to records from the California Division of Boating and Waterways.
Josh Pickles’ autopsy report showed no alcohol in his system. Terry Pickles had a blood alcohol concentration of .028%. Neither had any traces of illegal drugs, toxicology tests concluded. Two of the boat’s passengers, in addition to the alcohol levels, also had THC, a common ingredient in marijuana, in their blood.
Sam Singer, a spokesman for Josh Pickles’ widow, Jordan Sugar-Carlsgaard, who remained on shore with their infant daughter during the ill-fated trip, said he does not know who was operating the vessel.
“The boating tragedy was the result of an unexpected and significant storm that struck this vessel and many others on Lake Tahoe,” Singer said. “The waves and weather were violent and sudden. That was the root cause of this tragedy.”
The El Dorado Sheriff’s Office is continuing to investigate, as is the National Transportation Safety Board.
In the autopsy report, Michael Elledge, a detective with the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office, reported that he responded to the accident scene shortly after 3:20 p.m.
“I arrived and found deputies on a private dock just north of the parking area near Lester Beach,” he wrote. “As I walked down the dock, I observed six deceased individuals covered in sheets for privacy.”
The victims had been pulled from the water by state parks officials and other authorities.
Elledge said he and another detective went to Barton Hospital in South Lake Tahoe where they interviewed Friduss, who works as a nurse in Rochester. She helped identify the victims.
“She advised during their boat ride, the weather drastically changed,” Elledge wrote. “The winds became unusually strong which caused approximately 8 foot swells in the water. It began to rain heavily and then snow. The boat was being rocked from side to side, began taking on water and ultimately capsized. The 10 occupants, including the decedent were thrown into the water. (Friduss) advised she and her mother had life jackets but was unsure if the others put theirs on.”
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