FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Fort Lauderdale police confirmed Friday that their marine unit briefly stopped two teenage sisters on a personal watercraft just moments before a crash that killed one of them earlier this week.
The agency said officers, while en route to another call, saw the personal watercraft make a minor violation in the Intracoastal Waterway and stopped to speak with the riders about safety.
Police said the interaction was “brief” and “proactive in nature,” with no written report or body camera footage because the officers were responding to another incident.
The crash happened Tuesday afternoon near the 2900 block of Northeast 24th Court, between the Oakland Park and Sunrise Boulevard bridges.
Investigators said 13-year-old Rochel Nisanov and her 16-year-old sister, Aviva Nisanov, jumped the wake of a passing boat before losing control and slamming into a concrete dock.
Their parents, riding behind them on another personal watercraft, rushed to help. Rochel died from her injuries.
“I didn’t come to Florida to bury my daughter,” their father, prominent Rabbi Shlomo Nisanov, said through tears while speaking to Local 10 News on Wednesday. “I came to Florida to have a good time with her and now I have to take her back in a casket. It’s not the way I imagined my vacation.”
Family members said Aviva woke up in the hospital Thursday and her first words were, “Where is my sister?”
Esteban Granados, owner of Prime Watersports, the Fort Lauderdale-based company that rented the vessels, said the family had no prior experience operating them.
“It was their first time,” Granados said Wednesday. “That’s why I was stressing all the safety instructions to them.”
Granados said the girls completed an online boater safety course through his company’s website, which is required in Florida for anyone born on or after Jan. 1, 1988, to operate a personal watercraft.
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officials said they are investigating whether the teen was properly certified and whether other vessels involved followed navigation rules.
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