photo credit: Joseph M. Arseneau // Shuttertstock

Last week, a tourist duck boat capsized on Table Rock Lake in Missouri, killing 17 people. One woman, Tia Coleman, was one of the survivors of the accident, along with her nephew. Colman told WXIN that she lost 11 family members, including her children, her husband, her mother-in-law, father-in-law, sister-in-law, and uncle.

Coleman says the captain of the boat told the passengers, “Don’t worry about grabbing the life jackets — you won’t need them,”but by the time she saw they were needed, it was too late.

“I felt like, if I was able to get a life jacket I could have saved my babies because they could have at least floated up to the top and somebody could have grabbed them,” she told reporters at Cox Medical Center Branson, where she was hospitalized.

The boat sank 40 feet and then rolled to an area of 80 feet deep. An investigation is ongoing into what led to the accident.

Written by Clarke Jones