Motorboat crash kills one, injures three

SAGLE — One person was killed and three others were injured when the motorboat they were in ran aground at Lake Pend Oreille’s Sourdough Point late Friday night.

Bonner County Sheriff’s officials identified the deceased as Jay Smith, a 44-year-old from the Oden Bay area. Marine patrol Lt. Cary Kelly said Smith died of injuries sustained in the crash.

Investigators had yet to interview the survivors, so it’s not clear who was behind the wheel of the 18-foot, open-bow powerboat.

“We haven’t determined that yet,” Kelly said.

The names of the survivors, two males and a female, were not immediately available on Saturday afternoon.

Kelly said the two males were taken by ambulance to Kootenai Medical Center in Coeur d’Alene. One has since been released and the other remained hospitalized on Saturday.

The woman was evacuated by helicopter to a hospital in Spokane, Wash. Kelly said they were still trying to obtain an update on the woman’s condition on Saturday afternoon.

Kelly said the powerboat struck a rock embankment a couple hundred yards south of the entrance to the marina at Sourdough Point, which lies near the western edge of Bottle Bay.

The boat struck the embankment at a high rate of speed and at a 90-degree angle, Kelly said.

“I think they were just disoriented,” he said.

There was evidence of alcohol consumption aboard the boat, Kelly said.

The collision happened at about 11:20 p.m.

It’s the second fatal boating crash on Lake Pend Oreille this summer.

A Sunnyside couple was killed on July 3 when the boat they were in collided with structural supports of the Long Bridge at high speed. The crash claimed the life of the boat’s driver, John Darby Cambell, 30, and that of his 34-year-old wife, Amber Acacia Campbell. The couple died of severe head and neck trauma, according to a sheriff’s accident report.

A passenger in the Campbell’s 21-foot Malibu Wakesetter, Gerred Michael Campbell, suffered back and neck injuries, but survived the crash. Gerred Campbell, 31, is not related to the couple that was killed.

Operator error and intoxication were cited as contributing factors in the Long Bridge collision, according to the sheriff’s investigation.