A popular Florida influencer’s husband was one of three men dramatically rescued after their fishing boat capsized just yards from a crowded St. Augustine beach — a terrifying moment he managed to report to 911 and his wife using Siri before losing cell service, according to a report.
Elijah Gomez, husband of content creator Kayla Gomez, had set out with friends Nathan Weiss and Weiss’s brother, hoping for a tranquil day on the water.
The skies were clear, the weather warm — the perfect setup for a relaxing trip. But on the return toward shore, the boat’s engine began to fail, sputtering at barely five miles per hour.
“We decided just to go slowly on the way back,” Weiss told First Coast News.
But as they approached the inlet, the boat began to take on water from the rear. The bilge pump failed, and a wave crashed over the bow.
“It started capsizing pretty fast without warning,” Gomez said.
“It pretty much sank instantly, and then just started to roll over,” Weiss added, according to the outlet.
Struggling to stay calm only a few hundred feet from the beach, they clung to the overturned vessel, shocked and shaken.
“I’d like to admit that I wasn’t panicking, but I’m pretty sure I was a little bit,” Gomez said.
Gomez used Siri to call 911 on his soaked phone — and then placed a second call to his wife, who was home with their three children.
The spouse — who has 1.7 million followers on TikTok and another 900,000 on Instagram — became distraught.
“Right when he told me, the boat flipped, his phone cut off, and I started panicking,” she said. “I was just home with the three kids. I had no clue what was going on.”
Emergency units from the St. Augustine Fire Department, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission arrived on scene and yanked them out of the water unharmed.
The ordeal cost them most of their belongings — wallets, phones, fishing gear and shoes.
“We kind of just showed up pretty defeated with all our stuff gone,” Weiss said.
“I was pretty grateful getting back,” Gomez added. “I showed up with like, one shoe, and that was it.”
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is now probing the accident, including the cause of the mechanical failure.
The survivors are urging other boaters not to underestimate early signs of trouble.
“If you’re having any sort of mechanical issues with your boat, you should just call either a tow boat or the Coast Guard,” Weiss said. “You think you could make it back in, like us, but it just takes one mistake, and the next thing you know, it’s underwater.”
