WASHINGTON — Police have recovered the body of a missing boater after the 17-foot sailboat he was on sank near the Bay Bridge over the weekend.
On Wednesday morning, Maryland’s Natural Resources Police said they located the body of the 46-year-old Adrian Perez of Upper Marlboro after he was on a boat that sank in the Chesapeake Bay around noon on Sunday. Perez was found about two miles north of the Bay Bridge.
Maryland Natural Resources Police Spokeswoman Candy Thomson says the boat ran into trouble and it sank so fast that the two adults and four children on board didn’t have time to put on life jackets.
Another boater pulled one man and four children from the water, but Perez was missing.
Thompson says Perez’s body is being taken to the medical examiner’s office in Baltimore for an autopsy.
Perez’s death marks the 17th boating fatality in Maryland so far in 2015. On average, there are 12 boating fatalities each year in the state, Thompson says.
The most boating fatalities the state has seen occurred in 2011 when there were 19, she adds.
Thompson says Natural Resources Police will be stepping up their enforcement leading up to Labor Day — a popular time for boaters to head to the Bay.
“We have to do something because 17 is just too many,” she say.
