Pontoon Rental Company Charged In Howell Boy's Boating Death: Authorities

Charges have been filed against a Maryland watersports rental company and its owner in the wake of a boating accident that killed a 9-year-old Howell boy last summer, Maryland Natural Resources Police announced Thursday.

Tyler Barnes, 33, the owner of OC Watersports LLC in Ocean City, Maryland, has been charged with five counts in the August incident that resulted in the death of Kaden Frederick, Natural Resources police said in a news release.

The accident happened Aug. 17 as the pontoon boat, which had 17 people on board including Frederick, was sailing on Sinepunxent Bay, just south of the Ocean City Inlet and near the northern end of Assateague State Park. Frederick was sitting on the bow of the pontoon boat, his legs dangling over the water, and lost his balance, Candy Thomson, spokesperson for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, said at the time.

"He just lost his balance," Thomson said at the time of the accident.

Kaden Frederick was one of four people sitting with their legs dangling from the front of the boat, the news release said. Bow riding is illegal in Maryland, Natural Resources police said.

When Frederick fell between the pontoons, the operator couldn’t stop the vessel, and the propeller struck the boy. Emergency crews couldn’t resuscitate the child.

Barnes and OC Watersports LLC, which does business as Under the Bridge Water Sports, have been charged with five counts: improper equipment on a rental vessel, failure to keep records, two counts of failure to keep required equipment on a vessel and one count of negligent operation of a vessel, the news release said.

The negligent operation charge was levied because it is considered negligent operation for a boat rental company to allow an overloaded vessel to leave the dock, according to a report by The Dispatch, a Maryland newspaper. The charges of failure to keep required equipment on a vessel were due to the lack of a legible maximum capacity plate on the vessel and a failure to keep enough required flotation devices for the number of occupants on board, the Dispatch reported. The report said the pontoon was short two flotation devices; U.S. Coast Guard regulations require vessels to carry enough flotation devices to match the maximum passenger capacity of the vessel.

The Dispatch report said Barnes and OC Watersports LLC face fines as a result of the charges.

A GoFundme campaign set up to assist the family remains active, though it reached its goal.

Read more here.

Kaden Frederick, via Kaden Frederick Memorial Fund GoFundme campaign