East Bay football and cheer team and parents injured in Everglades
Emergency crews help people injured in an airboat crash in the Florida Everglades. Dec. 13, 2024
OCHOPEE, Fla. - A group of children and parents from an East Bay youth football team is recovering after a tour boat accident in the Florida Everglades.
More than a dozen members of the Pittsburg-based MEGA Football and Cheer team were injured on Friday when two airboats giving tours collided and parents and kids were thrown into the water, the team said on Facebook.
Some suffered cuts and broken bones.
The airboats were carrying a total of 33 people when they crashed in Ochopee, about 75 miles west of Miami, news outlets reported. Sixteen people were transported to hospitals.
On Saturday, the group said that everyone in the hospital is in stable condition but a couple of parents still "face a road to recovery."
The 8-year-old-and-under team was in Florida for the American Youth Football & Cheer National Championships.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is investigating the crash.
The tour operator, Wooten’s Everglades Airboat Tours, is cooperating with the probe.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. This story was written from Oakland, Calif.