Woman arrested after fatal boating wreck in Thurston County, TCSO says
The Thurston County Sheriff’s Office arrested a woman on June 13 after she allegedly drove a boat intoxicated and pinned a man between the boat and a truck at Long Lake, near Lacey. The man later died from his injuries, Lt. Cameron Simper told The Olympian.
According to the June 15 probable cause statement filed in Thurston County Superior Court, the two were husband and wife.
Simper told The Olympian on June 15 that deputies responded at 6:52 p.m. on June 13 to a boating injury at the public access boat launch. He said an investigation revealed that a pontoon was being loaded onto a trailer. The vessel accelerated forward and pinned the victim, a 50-year-old, between the boat and the truck, he said.
Simper said the man suffered critical injuries and was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where he later died.
Simper said the driver of the boat, a 50-year-old woman, was arrested in connection to the incident. He said she showed signs of being heavily impaired while operating the boat. She was arrested on suspicion of homicide by watercraft and boating while intoxicated. She has not yet been charged.
She was scheduled to appear in Thurston County Superior Court at 2:30 p.m. on June 15. Court records late Monday did not indicate whether that happened, and a spokesperson for the Thurston County Prosecutor’s Office did not immediately respond to The Olympian’s inquiry about the case. The Olympian does not generally name suspects before they have had an initial court appearance.
According to the probable cause statement, witnesses saw the couple trying to load their boat onto a trailer attached to a truck. Witnesses allegedly told investigators that the man, who was standing between the boat and the trailer, was trying to direct his wife, who was driving the boat onto the trailer.
Witnesses stated they heard a thump and thought the man’s hand was trapped between the boat and the truck, the statement said.
“They stated (the woman) had gunned the boat forward, and when the witness went to help, he saw (the man) had a cut on his head,” according to the statement.
The woman allegedly admitted to drinking alcohol with her husband over the course of several hours while on the water, according to the statement, and stated that she had two to three drinks over four to five hours.
The woman failed a number of field sobriety tests conducted by the deputy on scene, according to the statement, and the deputy arrested her. At that point her husband had been loaded into an ambulance to be transported to a field to be airlifted to the hospital, the statement said.
The woman was then taken to Capital Medical Center in Olympia for a blood sample to test her blood alcohol concentration, according to the statement. She was informed of her husband’s passing, and she was transported to the Thurston County Jail.
According to the statement, the deputy on scene went back to examine the truck, trailer and boat. The deputy reported finding 10 to 15 open cans of alcohol in the boat’s trashcan, the statement said.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated with information from the probable cause statement.
This story was originally published June 15, 2026 at 12:46 PM.
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