RiverLiver
Leo
HDF Bronze Supporter
D-DAY
 
Costa Mesa CA
Posts: 5,318
APPD 0.63
Post Rank: 16
60' Hatteras
|
 |
Posted: Oct. 03 2004,7:07 pm |
Post # 1 |
   |
The Orange County Register
Colorado River, near Parker, Ariz.– Victor Cortez and Jeff Hewlett never met.
They lived eight miles apart: One in Santa Ana. The other in Orange. They might have passed each other on the I-5 on their way to work. Or brushed shoulders at The Block.
But here, 300 miles from home, on a narrow spot of the scenic Colorado River south of Parker Dam, their paths crossed brutally 14 months ago.
When it was over, one man floated face-down in the river.
The other left the scene in his boat. Some witnesses say he fled.
The blood of both men had traces of alcohol.
The tragedy became part of a growing national trend:
Boating accidents that involve alcohol increased by one-third from 1995 to 2003, an Orange County Register analysis of U.S. Coast Guard data shows. On the Colorado River, they doubled.
At the same time that alcohol-related boating accidents have risen, the total number of accidents has dropped, and the number of registered boats nationwide has remained steady.
Laws and regulations have done little to stop alcohol-related accidents, the Register found.
Only Alabama requires a license to operate a boat. Neither California nor Arizona hasany mandatory training requirements. It is legal to drink while operating a boat anywhere in the United States.
In many places, the risks seem to be remote.
Thousands of boaters leave spots like Dana Point Harbor and enjoy a few drinks without incident. Accidents along the Orange County coast are rare.
But on the river, plentiful booze, fast boats, the heat and huge crowds create a more dangerous climate than almost anywhere in the country, records and interviews show.
Just last month, over Labor Day weekend, three people died and one Hunt ington Beach man remained missing after their boat smashed into a bridge 50 miles upriver from Parker Dam. The eight people on board met at a bar and went for a night ride on the river. The Anaheim Hills operator was arrested on drunken-boating charges.
Their tragedy bore a striking resemblance to the earlier fatal encounter involving Cortez and Hewlett. It grew from a deadly mix of boats and booze.
A party culture
The river is a surreal and beautiful place - an intensely turquoise ribbon of water amid an apricot-colored desert.
In places, cliffs of burgundy rock squeeze the Colorado River into a narrow, deep and dark stream. In other spots, the 1,500-mile river opens into wide expanses of sparkling emerald lakes rimmed by lush greenery.
It starts in the alpine meadows of Colorado. Then, it cuts through Utah, carries its icy-cold waters through the Grand Canyon and flows through the desert, where the river warms to 70 degrees in the summer.
The river crowd is like a cult. It is a refuge from the 9-to-5 world. On weekends and holidays, thousands endure the long drive to get to Lake Havasu, the Parker Strip, Bullhead, Lake Mead or Lake Powell. College kids flock here for cheap and wild spring breaks.
The river divides California and Arizona. Scores of law-enforcement officers on both sides of the border patrol here daily.
For some boaters, it is a partyvortex - with tattoos,bare breasts and custom-painted boats. Ithas the beads like Mardi Gras and a motto like Las Vegas: "What happens on the River, stays on the River."
Hundreds of thousands of boaters descend on Parker Strip, a short, narrow stretch of the river between two dams. About 500,000 people a year come to Lake Havasu, a man-made lake to the north of the Parker Strip.
Of California's 1 million registered boat owners, at least one-third take their vessels to Arizona - fueling a tourism- based economy, according to a 2003 Arizona state survey.
Both sides of the 13-mile Parker Strip are lined with bars and liquor stores. Boaters can load up on booze just a few steps from the dock.
Up and down the narrow strip, mini-marts, resorts and landings sell 30-packs of Coors Light and Budweiser for about 60 cents a beer. Bars offer "Take Out" liquor. Restaurants advertise $1.50 Bloody Marys.
There are at least 60 spots, roughly four per mile, where you can buy a drink around the Parker Strip, records show.
"You can get booze here easier than you can get gas," said Ron Price, a deputy from the La Paz County Sheriff's Department.
The Cortez family
Victor and Erica Cortez first came to the river in 1995.
Both grew up in Santa Ana.
They met shortly after Erica graduated from high school, exchanged phone numbers and soon were dating.
Two years later, their first son was born. They got married in 1995, when Erica was pregnant with their second son. Two more children would follow. The couple first lived with Victor Cortez's parents in a house that was always full of family and friends.
Victor Cortez knew how to get a party going. He made up nicknames for friends. He called his wife "my pumpkin patch." He showed off their four sons at family gatherings so much that relatives just shook their heads and laughed. He wanted another kid.
He worked at a Lake Forest property management company, along with his father, brothers and cousins. The standing joke was that the company should be renamed The Cortez Co., since so many of them worked there. Victor Cortez also picked up side projects, laying tile, remodeling kitchens and building cabinets.
In 1996, when they were just 22, the couple bought a home - not far from Victor's parents. Victor Cortez immediately turned the Santa Ana bungalow into a series of remodeling projects - changing windows, redoing the front yard, ripping up the living room floors. In between, the couple fit trips to Baja, Las Vegas and the river.
In 1999, Victor Cortez bought a 10-foot, two-seat Sea Doo, a craft that resembles a motorcycle on the water.
River a second home
The river was even more a part of Jeff Hewlett's life. It was his second home.
He had been coming to the Colorado River for more than 20 years and knew the waters "like the back of his hand," according to his daughter Krista Hewlett.
In recent years, with his second wife, Lyn, he stayed on the Parker Strip at the Cliff Site Resort, an encampment of mobile homes at the northern end of the strip.
Hewlett, 48, grew up in Orange and worked in construction most of his life. He coached his son Mark in Little League and soccer. He coached Krista's teams, too, and built dugouts and batting cages at Villa Park High School.
When his children were small, he taught them to water ski and ride a Jet Ski. When Krista Hewlett, 23, bought her own house, he helped with repairs.
Hewlett loved to play. With friends, he boated and golfed. He traveled to Washington state for spring cattle roundups. He broke in polo ponies. On the river, he spent entire weekends on his 2000 Laveycraft, a 26-foot white, purple and yellow boat.
It was a slick, smooth and powerful ride. "You turn the key, it starts," he said.
Deaths on the rise
Seven years ago, law enforcement on the Arizona side of the Colorado River invested in a boating safety center andaspecialized fire station staffed with a marine rescuecrew.
La Paz County added more "boat cops." Patrols doubled, and patrol boats remained on the Parker Strip two to three hours longer to watch the departing bar crowds.
"The department had an attitude change," Deputy Richard Epps said. "There was a public outcry because the waters here were so dangerous."
The number of boating-under- the-influence arrests tripled and later quadrupled, according to statistics kept by the county Sheriff's Department.
On the California side of the river, the San Bernardino County sheriff bought new patrol boats.
Nationally, the number of boaters arrested for their involvement in alcohol-related accidents almost quadrupled.
But law-enforcement efforts have had mixed results.
Although alcohol-related deaths peaked nationwide in 2002, the numbers remain higher than they were nine years ago. The overall number of accidents involving alcohol went up from 1995 to 2003, the Register analysis shows.
During the same period, the number of boaters killed or injured in alcohol-related accidents increased 55 percent, from 511 to 791 nationally - even as the overall number of reported boating accidents dropped.
On the Colorado River, in California, Arizona, Nevada and Utah, the number of boaters killed or seriously injured in alcohol-related accidents went from 15 to 39.
These numbers are small compared with automobile accidents. There are 10 times more registered passenger cars in the United States, and 60 times more people are killed in car crashes.
But automobile drunken-driving accidents have been declining steadily over the past decade due to stricter laws, increased enforcement and education programs. Alcohol-related boating accidents have been going the opposite direction.
Attempts to strengthen laws on drunken boating have been derailed repeatedly by intense lobbying from boating enthusiasts and the liquor industry.
Now, patrolboats on the Colorado River have more to worry about.Last month, on the Arizona side, bars began staying open an hour longer - until 2 a.m.
At the same time, education efforts have lagged. Neither California nor Arizona has mandatory training or education requirements for boat operators. You can operate a boat once you turn 12 in Arizona. There are no boat size restrictions. The age limit in California is 16, although children as young as 12 can operate a boat if an adult is present.
Under Arizona law, an arrest for drunken boating has no bearing on a person's driving record. In California, a ticket for drunken boating could count as a prior for a driving DUI. But it does not matter how many drunken boating tickets an operator gets. Without any licensing, there's no way to stop repeat offenders from launching their boats.
Paths about to cross
Victor and Erica Cortez planned to go to San Francisco for the Fourth of July weekend. At the last minute, they changed their minds.
Other family members were going to Lake Havasu, so the couple took their four boys - from 2-year-old Nicholas to 9-year-old Victor - to the river.
They fought traffic Thursday night and got to Lake Havasu City late. Friday was a quiet Fourth of July. They played in the water at a shallow spot, stopped at McDonald's and watched the fireworks.
On Saturday, they drove to the Moonridge Marina resort on the Parker Strip to join Victor Cortez's first cousin George Cortez and his family.
Erica Cortez liked the place. It seemed safer. It had a protected spot where children could play, separated from the boats and Jet Skis. The men rode a golf cart to pick up ice from a mini-mart.
When they returned, they noticed the Jet Skis, parked in the water, were sinking. Water had gotten into the engines. The men fiddled with the craft in the sweltering 115-degree heat.
From where she sat, Erica saw her husband open a beer. After he downed that one, he opened another.
That was about thetime Jeff Hewlett loaded four kids and three adults intohis boat for a pre-picnic run on the river.
Their dock was about 150 yards upstream from the launch ramp where the Cortezes drained water from their Sea Doos.
Earlier that day, Hewlett went to pick up his 23-year-old son, Mark, and his friends at the riverfront Blue Water Casino. They ate brunch at Fox's, a restaurant with a floating bar. Then, they rode the boat for a while and returned to Cliff Site Resort, where Hewlett and his son were staying.
Hewlett drank a couple of beers on the dock. He said it wasn't his practice to drink on his boat.
But the craft was stocked with booze. The built-in ice-chest held 12 unopened cans of Coors Light, three cans of Budweiser and six 12-ounce bottles of Smirnoff Ice.
At Cliff Site, other residents asked Hewlett for a ride. By the time Victor and George Cortez put their Sea Doos in the water to pump their ailing engines, Hewlett was making a second run on the river with a boatful of guests.
In all that day, Hewlett said, he had three or four beers. "Max."
'Everyone screaming'
It was about 2:30 p.m.
Victor and George Cortez took off moving north toward the dam.
Their wives sat by the river, watching the kids and gossiping.
Shortly after they left, one of the Sea Doos stalled. Victor Cortez gestured that his engine had died, so his cousin started looking for a spot to turn around.
There were Jet Skis and boats everywhere. You could almost cross the river jumping from one boat to another.
Jeff Hewlett was cutting through this maze.
Friends who have spent time with Hewlett say he was conscientious and responsible at the helm. They felt safe with him. But that weekend, other boaters saw Hewlett's boat racing up and down the river so dangerously that one boater told police she considered a citizen's arrest.
Now, the boat was going fast - much faster than others, a half-dozen witnesses said. It was doing what local boaters call a "speed run" akin to a motoristweaving dangerously through traffic on the freeway.
Hewlett saw a Jet Ski right in front of his bow. He sent his boat swerving one way, then another. The boat veered so hard that the propeller with its four rotating blades came out of the water.
Jeff Hewlett may never have seen Victor Cortez, immobile on his Sea Doo.
"Next thing I knew, boom, boom, boom. It happened pretty quick," Hewlett would tell police.
The impact sent Victor's seat into the air. George Cortez saw his cousin floating face-down.
He rushed to get closer. He shut off his Sea Doo and jumped into the water.
"I kept on thinking, 'I got to get there; I just got to wake him up,'" George Cortez said.
He grabbed his cousin by the life jacket and pulled. Victor Cortez was gasping for air. The jacket started sliding off, and his arms flew up.
His right hand was gone.
"That freaked me out," George Cortez said. He started screaming for help.
George Cortez weighed 160 pounds, Victor Cortez about 240.
As George Cortez tried to keep his cousin's frame from sinking, he grabbed him from behind, holding onto his stomach. Something did not feel right.
Victor Cortez's midsection was sliced open.
The first boat that came to help was too high to get Victor Cortez out of the water.
Jim Campbell, the owner of the Cliff Site Resort, saw what happened from the shore. He yelled to his wife and friends to get into his pontoon boat. By the time they reached Victor Cortez, the current had carried him about 100 yards.
It took four people pulling by his arms and two people pushing from below to lift Victor Cortez from the water.
"As soon as we pulled him out, everyone around us was screaming," Campbell recalled.
Victor Cortez's leg was sliced to the bone, most of his ribs were broken. His stomach was slashed open by the propeller. His right lung and liverwere cut. So was hisheart.
George Cortez rushed his Sea Doo back to the cabana, yelling for 911.
Erica Cortez jumped up screaming and ran to the dock. Her husband lay there covered with a towel. His eyes were open.
He was unconscious.
Paramedics swarmed. There was talk about getting a heli copter. Erica Cortez overheard that divers were searching for "a missing appendage." She could not comprehend what it meant.
Conflicting accounts
What Jeff Hewlett did after the accident is in dispute.
Cory Cisneros, a boater who jumped into the river to help rescue Victor Cortez, said Hewlett's boat slowly circled the scene and left. Two others saw Hewlett stay for a few minutes.
Then he went to his dock and tied the boat.
Three witnesses said they heard friends telling Hewlett to sober up. A neighbor saw him on the dock holding his head and crying.
Seven witnesses said Hewlett, after hitting the Sea Doo, never returned to help or give his name to the victim or his family.
Under both California and Arizona law, failure to do so is a fel ony. In Arizona, the maximum punishment for the crime is 21/2 years in prison.
Hewlett gone
The 911 call came to the La Paz County Sheriff's Department at 2:58 p.m.
Minutes later, a boat with two sheriff's deputies roared to the landing where the paramedics surrounded Victor Cortez.
The first witness told investigators he saw the owner of the boat involved in the accident leaving.
At 3:15 p.m., the deputies reached Hewlett's boat.
Three adults who had ridden with Hewlett were standing on the dock just a few feet from the boat. They were holding open bottles of Coors Light.
Hewlett was gone. And no one could say exactly where he was.
Lyn Hewlett told police her husband went to the hospital to check on the victim. A young man who was on Hewlett's boat said Hewlett was at a nearby fire station. Police could not find him at eitherplace.
The ambulance ride
To Erica Cortez, the 16-mile ambulance ride from the river to La Paz Regional Hospital seemed to last forever. She sat in a hospital waiting room, anxious to see her husband.
Victor Cortez was pronounced dead at 3:15 p.m., 17 minutes after the first 911 call.
When she got to see him, his body was covered. He looked like he was sleeping.
She rubbed the back of his neck. There was a huge cut. He had a cut on his cheek.
"I put my face on his chest, and the blood started coming through the blanket," she said.
"I wish every day he would have been conscious for just one minute," Erica Cortez said. "Then he could (have) looked me in the eyes and heard me tell him how much the boys and I loved him and needed him."
The time that passed between the 911 call and her husband's death - those 17 minutes - torment Erica Cortez.
"If that man just stopped, if he just put Victor on his boat, brought Victor to me. Maybe he could be saved. And the man never stopped."
But medical experts say there was probably nothing doctors could do.
"The chances are very close to zero that anyone with such injuries could have survived, even under the best of circumstances," said Marc A. Levison, a member of the board of directors of the American Trauma Society who has been a trauma surgeon in Arizona for 25 years.
Hewlett arrested
At least an hour after the officers arrived at his dock, Hewlett returned to talk to them. One officer, Guy Nelson, noted the time: 4:20 p.m. - 82 minutes after the first 911 call.
Nelson could see Hewlett's eyes were red. He smelled of alcohol. The investigators asked Hewlett to go to the station for an alcohol test and questioning.
Just as the deputies led him away, Jim Campbell, the same man who carried Victor Cortez to the shore, got on a phone to find an attorney for Hewlett. The two men are friends.
Campbell owns and manages Cliff Site Resort, andtheHewletts have rented there for years.
Hewlett was tested at 5:34 p.m., 2-1/2 hours afterthe accident. A breath test revealed a blood alcohol level of .054. If he was tested immediately, said Todd Griffith, the chief of Scientific Analysis at the Arizona Department of Public Safety, Hewlett likely would have been at the .08 legal limit, if not higher.
Hewlett's videotaped interview lasted five minutes.
Just after investigators asked him how many drinks he had that day, his attorney arrived at the station and called a halt to the questioning. Hewlett was arrested on the spot for failure to provide help in a fatal accident.
The next day, Erica Cortez's parents drove her and the boys back to Santa Ana. She cried most of the way home, so much that her sons told her to stop. She had trouble eating for weeks. For six months, she could not bring herself to cook.
"I felt mad, I felt sad, I felt cheated," she said.
Victor Cortez was brought back from the river almost a week after the accident, packed in dry ice. Four hundred people came to his funeral. He was 29.
The punishment
In the year that followed, Hewlett would be charged with 16 counts, including manslaughter, drunken boating and fleeing the scene. His attorneys struck a plea agreement with La Paz County prosecutors - almost a year after the fatal accident. There was no trial. He was sentenced July 26.
Hewlett pleaded no contest to one count of committing a negligent homicide. The judge found him guilty, ordering Hewlett to serve a year in county jail with four years' probation. The rest of the charges were dropped.
The agreement and the sentence came as a shock to the Cortez family. Erica, the children, Victor Cortez's parents, and at least 50 other relatives and friends drove to Parker to attend.
Hewlett's attorney and friends blamed the accident on a jet skier who veered into his path. They hinted it was George Cortez.
They also noted that Victor Cortezhad a.07 blood-alcohol level at the time of the accident.
Prosecutor R. Glenn Buckelew, the La Paz county attorney who handled the case, said he and investigators concluded that Hewlett was going too fast for the crowded river and his judgment was impaired by alcohol. But he did not have enough evidence to convict Hewlett of either fleeing the scene or drunken boating.
Building a case on the river can be difficult.
"There are no skid marks on the water," Buckelew said.
Was Hewlett's accident a hit-and-run? He left but not immediately. And that stopped the prosecutor from pressing on the hit-and-run charge.
The law, Buckelew said, is poorly written and directs boaters to provide "all practical and necessary assistance" and exchange information in accidents.
"'Practical' is the magic word here," Buckelew said. "In this case, there was nothing the guy could do. There were bystanders there. They actually pulled the victim out of the water ... meanwhile Hewlett had his hands full with the people on his boat."
That statute's language needs to be clarified, said Kevin Bergersen, an official with the Arizona Game & Fish Department.
"The real crux of the issue is remaining on the scene so that the accident could be investigated fully."
The prosecutor said he dropped the drunken boating charge as a matter of policy. Hewlett's blood-alcohol content was borderline, factoring in the time of the test and the accident.
In addition to the jail time, Hewlett paid $12,150 in restitution. The judge also ordered him to stop drinking for four years.
"I just wanted to scream in that courtroom," George Cortez said. "But we had to be civil about it. There was nothing we could do."
Hewlett's case was watched on both sides of the Colorado River. The investigator and the head of the sheriff's boating safety division pleaded with the court to consider the impact the decision would have on boating safety and the ability to enforce laws.
"The 'boatingcommunity' is watching to see if you can boat drunk, kill another person and get away with it in Parker," Nelson, the deputy who investigated the case, wrote to the judge before the sentencing.
In nine years as a deputy, Nelson had never written anything like this to a court. He felt he had to say something.
Change resisted
Traditionally, changes in boating laws meet resistance. It took the death of a 12-year-old girl near Needles - decapitated when she was riding a Jet Ski - to raise the operator age limit to 16 in California in 1997.
Law-enforcement officials on both sides of the Colorado River agree that licensing would keep unruly, inexperienced drivers off the choppy waters.
"It should be just like for motorcycles," said Ron Wells, a San Bernardino sheriff's deputy who has been patrolling the river for three years.
But efforts to strengthen the laws in California have failed.
In 1999, Gov. Gray Davis vetoed an attempt to license boat operators and introduce mandatory safety training. It's been more than a decade since California lawmakers discussed an open-container law for boaters.
"Every boating law administrator in every state is wrestling with it," said Raynor Tsuneyoshi, director of the California Department of Boating and Waterways. "This thing is called recreational boating. Recreation equals having fun. Having fun for a lot of people means slamming a few drinks.
"We talk to a lot of lobbyists. And two things are sacrosanct to them: They don't want their registration fees to go up and they want to be able to invite alcohol to go with them on a boat."
Detective Mike Fassari, the head of the marine safety unit of the San Bernardino sheriff's substation on the Colorado River, helped push the 1999 legislation to make boating-safety education mandatory. The largest opposition came from yacht clubs.
"It was very confusing to me. These are the very people who own these expensive boats and can passthe test,"Fassari said.
"Our boating constituency felt that that bill was not sufficient to improve water safety," said Jerry Desmond Jr., a lobbyist who represents boating interests.
In Alabama, after boat-operator licensing went into effect in 1998, accidents decreased dramatically. The changes were prompted by separate deaths of children in boating accidents.
"It takes tragedies to get anything done," said Capt. B. R. Huffaker, chief of operations with the Alabama marine police.
In the absence of licensing, law enforcement on both sides of the Colorado River say that education is the main way to increase boating safety.
The National Transportation Safety Board listed mandatory education as its top marine safety priority for 2004. But the number of boaters who go through boating safety courses is tiny compared to the half-million boaters hitting the river around Lake Havasu. Just 25 people a year take boating safety classes in Parker.
On the California side, near Needles, no more than 80 people a year go through two-day boating safety classes. Most of them attend because they have been sentenced by San Bernardino Superior Court.
Hewlett still free
On a mid-August night, the lights were out at Jeff Hewlett's Orange home.
The Hewletts don't want to discuss the accident.
Since the sentencing, Hewlett, his attorneys and his friends have been trying to arrange it so he can serve his jail time in Orange County. That would allow him to keep his job and his house. His attorney asked the judge to order house arrest.
While the negotiations continue, Jeff Hewlett is free.
"Over and over again, the nagging questions to himself are 'what if he had no alcohol at all?' 'Could he still have avoided the accident?' 'Was he going to(o) fast ... ?'" his attorney wrote to the court.
He has been treated for high blood pressure and anxiety. A year after the accident, Hewlett expressed remorse in his letter to the judgebefore sentencing.
"Wordscannot explain the nightmare that will continue for the rest of my life," he said.
Nelson, the lead investigator, remembered a different Jeff Hewlett.
In his letter to the judge, Nelson wrote that Hewlett appeared more concerned about his boat. He asked investigators if he could say "goodbye" to the Laveycraft before returning to California after the accident.
"At no time did he ever ask about Victor's widowed wife or four young children," Nelson said.
A civil suit against Jeff Hewlett is pending. He still goes to the river, but, his friends say, he has had a hard time standing at the helm.
In August, he sold his boat.
Trying to move on
Piecing their life back together has been tough for the Cortezes.
Friends and family pitched in with money after the accident. The La Paz County Victim Compensation Fund helped with $5,000 for funeral expenses. Erica Cortez's parents moved in to help with payments on the 1,245- square-foot house.
She glued a tiny picture of Victor hugging her to the rearview mirror of the family van - the same van they drove to the river. The voice of Victor Cortez still greets callers on his wife's cell phone.
Every Sunday, she dresses up the boys and heads to the grave site.
Healing has been slow for the children, too.
Richard, now 9, told his mother he was afraid to die.
Nicholas, the youngest, now 4, crawls to her bed, crying, "I want my daddy."
A few weeks ago, little Victor asked, "Why don't we just all kill ourselves and be with Dad?"
It is a different, quieter, struggle for George Cortez. He has been treated for post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and severe depression.
In late July, right after the sentencing, George Cortez put in a basketball hoop in Erica Cortez's front yard. He trimmed the palm trees that his cousin planted.
"I sit there in a garage sometimes, waiting for him to show up," George Cortez said. "Iopen thegaragedoor. He loved listening to music. So, I turn on the radio. And I wait. But he does not show up."
Timeline of accident on the Colorado River
2:30 p.m.: Victor and George Cortez put their Sea Doos in the water. Victor Cortez's craft stalls.
2:58 p.m.: 911 call informs police of an accident involving a Sea Doo and a boat. Bystanders and firefighters are helping an injured man.
3:05 p.m.: Investigators on their way. A boater tells them the operator of the boat involved in the accident has docked at Cliff Site Resort.
3:10 p.m.: Divers are dispatched to look for a missing hand.
3:15 p.m.: Investigator Guy Nelson reaches Jeff Hewlett's docked boat. He interviews passengers. They tell him Hewlett, 46, has gone to check on the injured man.
3:15 p.m.: Victor Cortez, 29, is pronounced dead at La Paz County Regional Hospital.
3:25 p.m.: Sgt. Alan Nelson is dispatched to look for Hewlett at the hospital.
4:20 p.m.: Hewlett returns to the dock to talk to investigators.
5:20 p.m.: Police check Hewlett for signs of alcohol impairment. They determine he had been drinking.
5:34 p.m.: A breath test reveals a blood-alcohol content of 0.054.
5:40 p.m.: A second test shows 0.043. The tests are close enough that investigators conclude the first test was valid.
6:33 p.m.: A videotaped interview begins. Hewlett tells investigators about the accident. He said he had three or four beers during the day.
6:38 p.m.: Hewlett's attorney, Matthew G. Newman, arrives at the sheriff's station and stops the interview. Hewlett is arrested on suspicion of fleeing the scene of a fatal boating accident.
Sources: La Paz County sheriff investigative reports, 911 dispatch logs and court files.
Don't Be a Hater
|
12-16-2025 Gas price in your area (Rep.#7,376) from: GoFastRacer
I noticed the front page while I was at work today, but couldn't find the time to read it until I got home. All I had time to do was tell everyone that the Register was taunting me today. 
Maybe we can make some quick $$$ by selling "I survived Parker" t-shirts. 
