Blizzard guilty of negligent homicide, jury deadlocks on other charges

LACONIA – A Belknap County jury found a Laconia marina operator guilty of negligent homicide when she drove her 37-foot Formula boat into Diamond Island on Lake Winnipesaukee in 2008, killing her best friend.

Girl nearly loses arm in boating accident / good recovery with help of doctors

Newswise — Kristen Kilpatrick could see the whirling propeller approaching after her fishing boat lurched forward, plunging her into the cold lake. “The motor creates this weird funneling and it just sucks you in. I just curled up into a little ball,” the Texas Christian University sophomore recalled. On a May 2009 weekend whim, she and friends had gone to the lake on her family’s ranch near Hico, located southwest of Stephenville. The engine was brutally unforgiving.

Driver of boat gives his account

Todd Spangler said he didn't whip an inner tube carrying two women into a dock at West Shores Lake. Spangler said the women — his wife, Kim, and their close friend, Jennifer Finke-Dwyer — “skipped across the water like a rock” and didn't hit the dock until 3 to 6 seconds after they had fallen off of the tube he pulled behind his boat.

Trial called in Lake George tour boat tragedy

Albany, New York - March 9, 2010 A federal judge has called a trial to determine whether another boat's wake contributed to a deadly tour boat accident on Lake George. In 2005 the Ethan Allen capsized, killing 20 elderly passengers from the Midwest. The Lake George Steamboat Company filed a request asking a judge to dismiss liability claims that its tour boat's wake contributed to the accident. On Monday the judge refused, setting a trial for June 10. Claims against the boat owner, operator and tour organizer have been settled. WCAX News

Crime or tragic accident? --Trial opens in boating fatality

The driver of a boat on trial for negligent homicide in the Father's Day 2008 death of a 34-year-old Meredith woman had a blood-alcohol level one-and-a-half times the legal limit of .08 when the power boat she was piloting hit Diamond Island, according to the state. Prosecutor Jim Carroll told jurors during opening arguments Monday in the trial of Erica Blizzard, 37, of 36 Gold Street, Lakeport, that the defendant was "impaired" when she crashed the 37-foot 2008 Formula 370 SS she was piloting into the 27-acre island located in The Broads — the widest section of the lake.