Two vacationers from Texas suffered fatal injuries when their parasailing adventure turned into a nightmare just South of Cancun, Mexico near the Myan ruins of Tulum. They had arrived on Saturday and had planned to stay for a week.
Despite the waters being closed to water craft due to unpredictable wind conditions and rough waters, Margaret Beaman, 49, Lisa Smith, whose age is not known, and Sally Uhrig chartered a parasailing trip. The company that they used is also not known.
Reports from a high-ranking investigator in the case say that Uhrig stayed on board the boat while Beaman and Smith set off on the adventure. However, there are several
conflicting reports from both witnesses and the Noticaribe news that claim Uhrig either never left shore or that she was also in the air.
What happened next
can only be explained as what might be the final moments of panic and terror for both Beaman and Smith:
The women, identified as Margaret Beaman, 49, and Lisa Smith, were killed when the parachute they shared was blown into a rocky area on shore where the two were pummeled by rocks and palm trees, authorities said Monday.
Once the women’s parachute broke from the boat, it quickly headed toward shore, where the two victims crashed. “It seems they hit the water in a rocky area, and then they were elevated again and became trapped in a palm tree,” Mr. [Lucio Salvador] Arguea (the director of civil protection in Tulum) said.
The captain of the boat ordered his assistant off the boat after the parachute broke loose and left the scene, Mr. Arguea said. He said police had detained the parasailing service providers as part of their investigation.
Both women died from head and body injuries and authorities are saying that the captain and others on the boat are "clearly negligent" in this accident since navigation activities in the area were closed.
The third woman had officially checked out of her hotel on Monday, the next day after the tragic accident.
This tragety comes just a few weeks after another vacation death reported here on
Digital Journal by Debra Myers when a woman drowned during a tubing adventure in Belize when the river's danger signs may have been ignored by guides. Another vacation gone bad happened in Cancun to
Lisa Chung, an 18-year-old girl who was on a vacation with friends in Cancun died this summer when the boat she was on started sinking. She became trapped underneath a rescue boat. She died in a Dallas hospital from heart and lung failure.
If nothing else, it sure does bring up issues of liability and the credibility of foreign tourist adventures where safety is of extreme importance.
