Indiana Conservation Officers and the U.S. Coast Guard are conducting a joint investigation of a serious boating accident on Saturday at the Michigan City harbor.

According to a statement released on Sunday by the DNR Law Enforcement Division, at approximately 8 p.m. a boat operated by Michael Cronin of Tinley Park, Ill., hit the detached breakwall at the north perimeter of the harbor, striking it with such force that all of the boat’s occupants were thrown overboard.

When the Coast Guard arrived at the scene, the statement said, the occupants had made it safely to the breakwall and the boat itself was drifting nearby. Coast Guard personnel transported the boaters to the USCG station in Michigan City and they were then taken by ambulance to St. Anthony Memorial Health Center. Two 9-year-old girls were subsequently airlifted to a Chicago hospital for treatment of injuries sustained in the accident.

Cronin was later arrested on a charge of refusal to submit to a blood alcohol test and transported to LaPorte County Jail, the statement said.

“Operating a motorboat in Indiana carries the same responsibilities as does operating an automobile,” the statement said. “The operator cannot be under the influence of alcohol (.08 BAC) or above and assumes the same implied consent to be tested when probable cause warrants a test. Refusal of the test can cause the operator to lose (his or her) driver’s license as well as (the) privilege to operate a motorboat for up to a year. All of that can be increased when people with life-threatening injuries result from an accident where the operator is under the influence or refuses to be tested.”

Posted 9/22/2008