Summerland Key woman dies after boat strikes her while freediving

A Little Palm Island boat strike turned fatal for Jocelyn Brown, a 27-year-old Summerland Key resident, and put a hard question back in front of Monroe County: were the rules meant to protect divers actually followed in one of the Keys’ busiest shared-water corridors?

Brown was freediving off the Lower Keys island from an anchored vessel around 11 a.m. on May 8 when a 24-foot Twin Vee catamaran hit her. Two people aboard the boat, both from Ramrod Key, helped bring Brown to shore. She was later pronounced dead at Fishermen’s Hospital.

The dive flag on Brown’s boat was up at the time of the collision, a detail that makes the crash more than a tragic marine accident. Florida law requires vessels to stay at least 300 feet from a diver-down flag in open water and at least 100 feet in rivers, inlets or navigation channels. In those constrained waters, boaters are required to proceed no faster than headway and steerageway. The state also says diver-down flags must be red with a white diagonal stripe and prominently visible.

That framework exists because the waters around Little Palm Island, south of Ramrod Key and near Big Pine Key, are crowded with boat traffic, fishing boats, snorkelers and freedivers moving through the same narrow lanes. The collision shows how quickly a routine day on the water can turn deadly when visibility, speed or spacing breaks down.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office were still investigating the circumstances after the crash, and no charges had been filed. One FWC account said the vessel operator stopped after the collision and passengers helped recover Brown from the water before she was taken ashore.

FWC has urged both boaters and divers to maintain 360-degree awareness around diver-down flags, a reminder that the burden of safety does not rest on one side alone. In the Lower Keys, where anchored boats, reef runs and shallow-water recreation overlap, enforcement and basic awareness often become the difference between an ordinary outing and a fatal collision.

Brown’s death also fits a wider pattern that Monroe County officials know well. Florida publishes annual boating accident reports through FWC, and the Keys have long been treated as one of the state’s most dangerous places for marine crashes. For a community that depends on the water, the loss near Little Palm Island is a stark warning that the rules on paper only work when boaters and divers see each other in time.