A 26-year-old woman was killed after two jet skis collided during a boozy, moonlit ride on the Harlem River, prosecutors said Monday.
The victim was riding on the back of a jet ski operated by a 26-year-old man when, as the driver made a U-turn just north of the RFK Bridge, a second watercraft operated by a 27-year-old man and carrying a 28-year-old woman slammed into them shortly before 10 p.m. Saturday, cops said.
The crash sent all four people flying into the water.
Harbor Patrol responded and performed CPR on the unconscious victim, but she could not be revived. Medics rushed the victim to Harlem Hospital, where she died. Her name is being withheld pending family notification.
Prior to the crash, the victim and her friends had been drinking on Randall’s Island, where the Fish Fry music festival was being held, after arriving there by jet ski around 11 a.m. that morning, court documents show. The group was returning to Fort Lee, New Jersey, when the victim’s friend crashed into the jet ski she was riding on, according to prosecutors.
A breathalyzer conducted less than two hours after the collision found the 27-year-old driver of the second jet ski had a blood-alcohol content of 0.141 — well over the legal limit of .08, prosecutors said.
That driver later told investigators he’d had three drinks while on Randall’s Island and that he’d crashed into the other wave runner because he couldn’t see in the dark, court documents show.
Yeisson Reyes Rodriguez, 27, was arrested Sunday and charged with manslaughter and vehicular manslaughter for the fatal crash. He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment and was released after posting bail set at $25,000.
Rodriguez has no criminal history in New York, but has criminal contacts in New Jersey, where he lives in Passaic, prosecutors said at his arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court on Sunday. He immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic.