(June 13, 2008)—Human error caused the weekend tourist boat accident that claimed the life of an 18-year-old Texas high school graduate who planned to attend Baylor University this fall, Mexican officials say.
Mexican government navigation official Miguel Angel Rebolledo said the boat's captain steered too close to a coral reef, damaging the vessel's hull and causing it to partially sink.
Officials said that Captain Agustin Cituk lacked sufficient experience with the catamaran-type vessel involved in the mishap.
Lisa Chung was on a graduation trip to Mexico when the vessel began to sink near Cancun.
She and other passengers were told to jump from the ship.
She was wearing a life preserver, but evidently was trapped underwater by a rescue boat, according to some accounts.
Mexican officials, however, said she may have dived off the wrong side of the boat and may have hit her head on the reef.
Doctors in Mexico said she was brain dead, but she was kept alive on a ventilator as her parents returned her to Dallas, where she died on Tuesday.
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