Deer Park Mom Who Lost Daughter In Boating Crash Demands New Laws

DEER PARK, NY — A heartbroken Long Island mother who saw her world shattered when her daughter was killed in a boating accident has set out to create change — so that no other family should ever have to bear such unthinkable loss.

Gina Lieneck, of Deer Park, has created a petition at change.org for "Brianna's Law," which she plans to deliver to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, advocating for stricter boating laws. So far, she's garnered 1,100 signatures with a goal of 3,000.

"Brianna's Law is a law that I'm trying to get passed in memory of my 11 year old daughter, Brianna Lieneck who was killed in a boating accident August 17, 2005. The majority of boat owners and operators are middle-aged adults and the current education laws do not pertain to them," Lieneck wrote on the petition.

Describing the day her world changed forever, Lieneck said she and her husband and kids had headed to her brother's house on Fire Island for a day of tubing off the boat.

At around 8:20 that night, they were heading back to the Bay Shore Marina, where they docked their boat. "A boat just came out of nowhere," she said. "We had stopped our boat for a second, and had just started to go again. We were going about 5 to 10 miles per hour. This boat flew from behind us at full throttle and went up and over the top of our boat."

Their boat, Lieneck said had a heavy canopy that collapsed on her daughter Brianna; their older daughter was 13.

"My husband and I didn't really know what was going on. We both took very bad hits to the head, and my arm was severed to the bone because of the propeller," she said.

Her older daughter Danyelle, faced with with the worst imaginable horror, was a "hero to all of us," she said. "I firmly believe it was the adrenaline — she lifted that canopy off my daughter."

Sadly, it was too late, and Brianna died.

Just 13, Danyelle saw her mother losing so much blood, got a towel and wrapped her arm. "It's a horror, what she had to witness that night," she said. "She saw a boat in the distance and she kept screaming for help, but at first they weren't coming. She screamed, 'Please, please, I don't know what happened to my family. Can you please help us?' It was the boat that hit us."

Finally, Lieneck said, the boat came back and tied their boats together. "Our boat was sinking. It was taking on a lot of water. We were unconscious."

Her husband Frank, Lieneck said, had broken every bone in his face, suffered skull fractures and brain damage that still impacts his life today.

"We couldn't bury my daughter for a month because we were critically injured," Lieneck said. "My husband's brain was so damaged, my family had to keep telling him that Brianna was gone. We had to remind him, every day."

Her own memories of that horrific day haunt, Lieneck said. "The only thing I truly remember when we were finally brought to the hospital was that I kept saying, 'Where is Brianna?' A doctor said, 'You keep talking about Brianna. She's dead.' At that point they were losing me. I went into shock."

At home, Lieneck and her husband physical pain but even greater and unimaginable mental anguish. "It was the toughest thing in the world," she said. Even today, she suffers from encephalomalacia, softening of the brain tissue due to trauma, a condition that can cause lifelong problems and even death.

But no physical injury can compare to the life-altering grief her family has suffered without their beautiful daughter, who would be going on 24 years old today.

"It just hit home the other day," Lieneck said. "One of Brianna's friends got engaged. That's when it hit me. She's missing out on so much in life. This was all such an avoidable accident. People have to be held accountable for their actions."

As it stands, Lieneck said, boaters not only need regulation, but boating while intoxicated is a critical concern.
"It's mayhem out there," she said.

Today, Lieneck said she often goes and sits by the Bay Shore Marina, watching the water. "It brings me closer to Brianna. I feel at peace there."

But still, she's "amazed at what goes on." Boaters without lights, speeding, drinking, not knowing basic rules of local waterways.

"Education is so important," she said. "You have to have some knowledge before you get a boat and take it out on the water."

Although Lieneck and her family believe the boaters who hit them may have been drinking, according to a New York Times article, a criminal charge was dismissed after a court-ordered test taken 4 hours after the crash showed no drugs or alcohol.

"We will never know what actually happened that night. I don't focus on going backward. I have to move forward, to make it safer for other lives on the water," Lieneck said.

Remembering Brianna

Her daughter, Lieneck said, loved softball. Her nickname was Breezy; after she died, Lieneck opened a business, Breezy's Field of Dreams, that helped her get through the darkest of days.

"She was the most caring child you'd ever meet. If she saw somebody sitting by themselves, she would go befriend them," Lieneck said. "She loved people."

She added, "What keeps me going is that she lived each day to the fullest."

Today, Lieneck said she tries to help others going through similar pain — because she knows the bottomless depths of loss.

"For two years, I was a recluse. I wouldn't leave my house. I wouldn't laugh. I didn't want to be in the outside world," she said. "For a long time, I asked God to please take me. I wanted to die; I begged God. I was stuck between two worlds and I just wanted to be with Brianna."

Her older daughter also struggled with grief, but has now graduated college and earned a master's degree.

"She's accomplished so much," she said of Danyelle.

And yet.

The pain of that agonizing night is ever present, an eternal heartbeat of grief. "I have my good days and my bad days," Lieneck said. "Crying is very important because it lets your emotions out."

Next steps

Lieneck has been meeting with a host of elected officials in advance of the legislative meeting in January when she hopes to present her petition.

And she's ready for a battle, armed with facts and research.

Lieneck added that according to her research, 22 people died in boating accidents in New York in 2016, an increase from the previous year when 16 died, she said. "According to new data from the U.S. Coast Guard, 2016 was the most lethal for New York boaters since 2014 when 27 died," she wrote.

"In 2013 there were 180 accidents, in 2014, 175 accidents, in 2015, 174 accidents, and in 2016, 188 accidents. In Suffolk County, 4 boaters died last year: 3 in open motor boats, 1 on a kayak and another on a paddle board, according to the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. In Nassau County, 2 people died in accidents involving open motorboats," she wrote on her petition. "New York ranked 31st out of 60 states, territories and regions in 2016 with 4.9 recreational boating fatalities per 100,000 registered boaters. New York moved up 6 spots from the year before, when it ranked 37th with a rate of 3.6 deaths per 100,000 registered boats."

According to Lieneck, the bill will demand stricter boating laws, making in-classroom boating education and certification mandatory for all operators of power driven vessels.

There will be no grace period for those classes and the legislation calls for the elimination entirely of online boating safety certification courses.

In addition, under the new legislation, children ages 10 to 14 may only operate a power driven vessel under 10hp, unless under the supervision of an adult at least 18 years of age who has completed an in-person boating safety course.

All power-driven vessels used in teaching on-water training, powered by an outboard or stern drive, excluding inboard and jet-drive, where persons are subject to being picked up out of the water by the power-driven vessel, would be required to be equipped with an appropriate propeller guard. This includes vessels conducting man-overboard drills, water skiing and wake-boarding.

Also, the legislation would state that boating while intoxicated and boating under the influence regulations would mandate a blood alcohol content test within a given period of time; for example, within 2 hours of the incident, where a fatality or injury is involved.

The legislation would allow for increased fines and imprisonment for convictions in New York waters, and mandatory liability insurance for power driven vessels, similar to what's required to motor vehicles.

"I will miss her and cry for the rest of my life. But maybe God left me here for a purpose. And that was to help save others' lives," Lieneck said.

To her daughter, Lieneck has made a vow: "I made a promise to Brianna that I will make this happen and I will change the laws in her name — so another family may be spared from this horrible nightmare."

Photos courtesy Lieneck family.