MIAMI – A law in memory of 17-year-old Lucy Fernandez, the victim of a boat crash when she was an Our Lady of Lourdes Academy senior, was in effect ahead of the Fourth of July boating traffic in South Florida.
The Florida law in Lucy’s honor implements new penalties for reckless boating including a mandatory minimum 4-year prison sentence for manslaughter while under the influence.
Lucy’s mother, Melissa “Meli” Fernandez, participated in a ceremony in her daughter’s honor on Wednesday morning near Miami City Hall in Coconut Grove to promote boater safety.
“Lucy was an incredible person. She was light, she was joy, she was all of those things, and she loved the water more than anything in the world,” Fernandez said.
Lucy was killed in a boat crash on Sept. 4, 2022, near Boca Chita Key. George Pino, the real estate mogul operating the boat, was awaiting trial for a charge of felony vessel homicide.
Aiming to prevent another tragedy, Lucy’s grieving mother and father, Andy Fernandez, got to work in her honor and set up a foundation in her name. He was also at the ceremony.
“We were led in this direction on purpose and we have no doubt that Lucy guided us here ... we are avid boaters,” Lucy’s father said. “We are a boating family and when we began to look at the gaps that existed and the laws and the enforcement of those laws, we realized we had no choice but to make this our number one priority.”
Florida Representatives passed House Bill 289 with a unanimous on March 26 and after amendments it passed the state Senate and the House on May 2.
In May, a civil lawsuit related to Katerina Puig, a girl who was in the boat with Lucy and was among the 11 injured, settled for $16 million.
On June 27, Gov. Ron DeSantis approved and signed HB 289 into law and it went into effect on Tuesday.
Puig, now a wheelchair user, was also a guest at the city’s ceremony on Wednesday. Other guests included
The law also sets penalties for leaving the scene of a boat crash, reckless operation of a vessel, and vessel homicide with the corresponding driving offenses.
It also prohibits a person from knowingly providing false information in a boating crash report and requires every person operating a boat powered by a motor of 10 horsepower or greater to either have a valid boater safety card or an equivalent.
Local 10 News Photojournalist Curt Calhoon contributed to this report.