NEED TO KNOW
- A teenage girl has died and her older sister was injured in a jet ski crash in Florida
- The incident occurred in the afternoon on Tuesday, August 12
- The two teenage girls — identified by family as Rachel Aliza Nisanov, 13, Aviva Bracha Nisano, 16 — were riding together when they struck a dock
A teenage girl died in a jet ski crash during a family vacation to celebrate her graduation, according to a relative. Her sister, who was driving at the time, was injured, but survived.
First responders received 911 calls about the crash shortly after 3:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday, August 12, a public information officer for Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue said in a statement obtained by PEOPLE.
The two teenage girls — identified by family as Rachel Aliza Nisanov, 13, Aviva Bracha Nisano, 16 — were riding together when they struck a dock, according to CBS News Miami, NBC affiliate WTVJ and local news station WPLG.
Both girls were rushed to Broward Health Medical Center with life-threatening injuries, but Rachel did not survive. Aviva, who was operating the jet ski at the time, remains hospitalized, reported WTVJ.
The fire rescue spokesperson said it was unclear how exactly the crash occurred.
Speaking about what happened, the girls’ brother Yonah told WTVJ that his sisters were “coming back to the dock” when “they lost control” and hit the dock.
Yonah said their family traveled to Florida from New York in honor of Rachel’s recent graduation — and their father, a rabbi, was on another jet ski at the time.
“My father doesn’t even know how to swim, he jumped in, my sisters were unconscious, their life jackets were on, they were lying flat and my father jumped in and scraped up his hands, feet, his back all over to save them,” he told the outlet.
“The father … he says he looked and they were gone,” a friend of the family who also works with Florida Highway Patrol, said during an interview with WPLG.
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Esteban Granados, who owns the local company that rented the jet skis to the family, told WPLG that the sisters finished an online safety course prior to taking the jet skis out on the water, but had no prior experience.
“It was their first time,” said the Prime Watersports owner. “That’s why I was stressing all the safety instructions to them.”
An investigation is ongoing and being handled by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Prime Watersports did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
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