As Regina Brinson and her uncle Isaiah Thomas helped 93-year-old Carlotta McIntosh across the packed gangway connecting the Sapelo Island ferry to land on Saturday, she heard a crack.
In a moment, the structure collapsed from under her as she and others dropped into the water. She remembers telling Thomas to grab her hand as the river’s current swept them away, she said at a news conference in Jacksonville on Tuesday. But her uncle also grabbed Brinson’s shirt, pulling her under the water. To survive, Brinson pried his hand off her — finger by finger.
“I kept saying to myself ‘Oh my god I’m going to die. I’m going to die,’” Brinson said.
She eventually made her way to the shore and began calling out to find her uncle. But Thomas and McIntosh were not so fortunate.
McIntosh and Thomas, who was 79, were two of seven people who died when the gangway collapsed during the annual Sapelo Cultural Day celebration at the Marsh Landing Dock. The celebration was to honor the island’s Gullah Geechee community, descendants of the enslaved people who once inhabited the island generations ago.
Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who is representing the families of many of the victims, on Tuesday called on the federal government to open an inquiry into the collapse. The ferry and gangway were operated by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.
“They were there for a celebration that turned into tragedy because of malfeasance,” Crump said at the Jacksonville press conference he organized.
Georgia DNR Commissioner Walter Rabon said authorities are investigating the “catastrophic failure” of the gangway, which is used to bring people who travel to otherwise inaccessible Sapelo Island to and from shore.
The structure was installed in November 2021 as part of a larger landing rehabilitation project and undergoes “almost daily” visual inspections by DNR staff, although those probes don’t involve structural reviews of the underside of the platform, Rabon said at a Saturday news conference.
Credit: TNS
Credit: TNS
The DNR confirmed in a separate statement that the gangway was inspected in December 2023, by Crescent Equipment Company.
Crump said his firm would get justice and resources for the families of the victims, who he refers to as the “Sapelo Seven.”
“They did not die of natural causes,” Crump said. “They died of negligence.”
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