FRENCH SETTLEMENT – A man was arrested after a 17-year-old girl was killed in a Fourth of July boating accident in Livingston Parish.
Several law enforcement agencies were called to Blind River near the Diversion Canal Monday evening after the teenager, identified as Madison Bradley of Slidell, fell from a pontoon boat.
“She was my everything, she was my best friend,” Madison’s mom Leigh-Ann Bradley said.
“She loved life. She had an amazing life, an amazing spirit to herself. She would do anything for anyone, at the drop of a hat it didn’t matter,” Madison’s dad Michael Bradley said.
The Department of Wildlife and Fisheries said she was standing past the guard rails on the front of the boat with another passenger when it hit the wake of another passing vessel. Both passengers fell out due to choppy waters, and Bradley was struck by the boat’s propellers.
Her body was recovered later that day. The other passenger who fell out was not seriously hurt.
The driver of the boat, 33-year-old Dustin Crowe, was arrested and booked into Livingston Parish Jail for vehicular homicide, DWI, and reckless operation of a vessel.
The girl’s death comes after several deadly incidents on the water in and around that same area. Last week, three boaters drowned in Lake Maurepas, and another man drowned in the Diversion Canal just weeks before that.
“I’ve been doing this for 40 years, and what I have learned is you have a high year and you have a low year. This is unfortunately a high year,” Sergeant Randy Lanoux said.
