FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A family vacation turned into tragedy when two sisters riding a personal watercraft slammed into a dock in Fort Lauderdale, killing 13-year-old Rachel Nisavov and injuring her 16-year-old sister, Aviva Nisavov, according to a rabbi close to the family.
“They came here on vacation,” said Rabbi Mark Rosenberg, a Florida Highway Patrol chaplain and close family friend.
“All four on two different Jet Skis. The Jet Ski that the two sisters were riding on … they lost control and they drove into the dock,“ he said. ”Both girls fell off the Jet Ski and into the water. The father and mother desperately tried to save their two daughters.”
The crash happened just after 3:30 p.m. Tuesday near the 2900 block of Northeast 24th Court, between the Oakland Park and Sunrise Boulevard bridges.
Officers responded to the scene of a single-vessel accident involving three personal watercrafts participating in a guided tour.
Preliminary findings indicate that one of the watercrafts, occupied by the two teenage sisters, jumped the wake of a passing vessel, lost control, and collided with a concrete dock, according to officials with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Sky 10 video showed a blue watercraft against the dock minutes after the collision.
Fire rescue crews responded and tried to save the girls, Rosenberg said.
He said Rachel, who was also known by her Hebrew name Rochel, was taken to the hospital but died shortly afterward. Aviva remains hospitalized in stable condition.
Rosenberg said the girls’ parents were riding a separate jet ski at the time of the crash.
“The father … he says he looked and they were gone,” Rosenberg said. “He had to see the accident with his children. He was in the water with his wife on a different jet ski.”
The Nisavov family is from New York and had been vacationing in South Florida.
Rachel was just one month shy of her 14th birthday.
Esteban Granados, the owner of Prime Watersports, the Fort Lauderdale-based company that rented out the vessels, spoke to Local 10 News about the crash on Wednesday.
Granados said the family rented two personal watercrafts Tuesday afternoon and had no prior experience operating them.
“It was their first time,” Granados said. “That’s why I was stressing all the safety instructions to them.”
He said the girls completed an online boater safety course hosted on his company’s website, which is legally required in Florida for anyone born on or after Jan. 1, 1988, to operate a personal watercraft.
Noon report:
Granados said he’s struggling to come to terms with what happened.
“It’s not something that happens every day — it’s never happened to either of us,” he said of his team.
Rosenberg said her body has been released from the medical examiner’s office and will be returned to New York for a funeral before burial in Israel.
Authorities confirmed that the FWC is leading the investigation into the crash.
No other details were immediately released.
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