The accident involved two boats hitting head-on while running at near full speed. One was a fiberglass bass boat, and the other was an aluminum john boat that was rigged as a fishing boat. The smaller boat was running the wrong way as regards the lakes direction of travel regulation which requires boaters to travel the lake in a counter clockwise direction, keeping the near shore on the starboard side. This is intended to keep boats that are close together moving in the same direction.

In this case the smaller boat’s presence in the path of the larger boat caused the larger boat to turn to the right to try to avoid the collision, but then the smaller boat also tried to avoid the collision by turning left. The single occupant of the smaller boat was ejected from the craft on the resulting impact and suffered broken bones and various cuts and bruises, and was transported to the hospital for treatment. His boat was twisted from the front to the back. The larger boat also had a large hole in the hull, but neither of the two occupants of that craft was injured.