The final FaceTime call of a 27-year-old mother before boarding the doomed boat… hours later, a tragedy unfolded that left everyone heartbroken
Sara Sanchez (left) was killed alongside her five-month-old baby (Image: -)
The young mother who died with her five-month-old baby when a boat capsized near the Statue of Liberty on Saturday smiled while holding the infant in a heartbreaking final FaceTime call with her family just hours before the tragedy.
Sara Sanchez, 27, and her five-month-old daughter, Antonella Garcia, perished after a dangerously overcrowded motorboat overturned off the coast of Liberty Island shortly before 10:30pm Saturday. They were part of a group of 14 passengers aboard the 22-foot bowrider, which had been chartered with Zeus Luxury.
Shortly before their deaths, Sanchez was with her five-month-old daughter as she told relatives they were about to board the doomed vessel for a birthday celebration. Sanchez was sitting beside her husband, Andrés García, as they called his mother in Bogota, Colombia, before boarding the boat.
“They were just about to get on the boat,” García’s brother Cristian Martinez told The New York Times. “They were so happy.” It was the last time that García’s mother would see her daughter-in-law and granddaughter.
A survivor of a deadly boat capsizing has described the terrifying cries of fellow passengers after they discovered that the mother and baby were still unaccounted for in the water after the vessel flipped over. Sara Raez told the New York Post she was part of a group celebrating her mother’s 41st birthday on the vessel.
The boat flipped over near the Statue of Liberty (Image: NurPhoto via Getty Images)
She remembered boarding the boat at Randall’s Island around 7pm. However, what should have been a memorable excursion turned tragic hours later when the craft “flipped over” within moments.
“When we were heading back, we were slow, but out of nowhere, people started screaming because the front of the boat went into the water,” Raez recounted.
“The water got into the boat. The boat went up, and when it went down – it was in seconds – it flipped over,” she added. “Everyone was on the bottom of the boat. We were just trying to get out. Then, when finally everyone got out, everyone was screaming, because we were still missing them, too.”
Approximately 15 minutes afterward, several passengers who had climbed onto the overturned vessel tried to signal a distant boat for assistance, but their efforts proved futile, Raez said.
They were ultimately rescued by another “party boat.”
“Then we saw another boat, and we all started screaming, ‘Help, help, help.’ And they started getting close. They started throwing life jackets, and I started swimming towards it,” she said.
When emergency responders reached the location, 12 of the 14 victims had already been brought to safety. However, Sanchez and her infant remained unaccounted for.
“We would just keep screaming, Please help us find them. And then police wouldn’t tell us anything. Then we went to the police, and then we went to the hospital. And we spent the whole night there,” Raez recounted.
Andres Garcia, Sanchez’s partner and the baby’s father, was among those safely recovered from the water. Heartbreaking photographs captured him weeping at the scene.
Raez disclosed that the couple also have a 6-year-old son who was not aboard the boat. His birthday falls this week, she said.
Fire Department New York helicopters deployed to the scene and were visible circling above. NYPD located the woman and child and transported them to the hospital for medical care, but tragically, they both succumbed to their injuries.
The vessel’s captain, identified as 46-year-old Manuel Hernandez, is now facing 13 charges of reckless endangerment. Coast Guard investigators are collaborating with the NYPD to establish “whether the operation constitutes an illegal charter operation.”
SOURCE: DAILY EXPRESS
https://www.the-express.com/news/us-news/213735/moms-final-call-she-died
