The Huntington accident, which occurred on Aug. 17, 2010, killed Augustus Adamopoulos, 10, of Ludlow.
NORTHAMPTON To Marilyn Antonucci, it was an idyllic scene: a father and son, sitting in a kyak on Norwich Lake, enjoying the peace of a late summer evening.
“I was just thinking what a lovely way to spend the evening,” Antonucci testified Wednesday in Hampshire Superior Court, recalling the night of August 17, 2010.
“And then we heard this huge crash,” she said.
Rammed by a motor boat, the kyak flipped into the air, hurling both passengers into the water. The father, James Adamopolous of Ludlow, sustained a deep gash to his leg; his son, Augustus, 10, who suffered a severed arm and punctured lung, died several hours later.
Testifying in the boating death trial of Stephen B. Morse, Antonucci and her husband, Frank, said they witnessed the crash while walking away from the lake, then frantically tried to summon help for the injured boaters.
“I hollered out as loud as I could for someone to call 911, it echoed (across the lake),” said Frank Antonucci, a prominent attorney with a law practice in Springfield.
Morse, 37, of Westfield, is charged with manslaughter, boat homicide by reckless operation while under the influence of alcohol, boat homicide by reckless operation and three counts of child endangerment while under the influence.
During opening arguments Tuesday, defense lawyer Michael O. Jennings attributed the accident to glare off the water, and told jurors that his client passed several field sobriety tests administered by police at the scene.
James Adamopoulos, a broadcast journalism teacher at Springfield’s Central High School, also described the horror and chaos following the collision, and the futile attempts to save his son’s life.
In testimony Wednesday, the Antonuccis said they went to the lake to swim about 5 p.m., but gave up after encountering a motor boat driving at high speeds and towing children on a tubes. The boat – owned and piloted by a friend of Morse’s – was churning up turbulence by making high-speed S-curves on the water, Frank Antonucci said.
Later, they saw the same boat – this time driven by Morse, who was towing the boat’s owner on water skis – collide with the kayak as it paddled near a dock.
Moments after the crash, Frank Antonucci stood on the shore and yelled out to the boat, which had slowed down and was heading for shore to “get out and help,” according to his wife, who is a language specialist with the Springfield school system.
Marilyn Antonucci first ran to the house of a nearby doctor, who wasn’t home, then flagged down a motorist who used a cellphone to call for help, she testified.
Assistant District Attorney Matthew Thomas asked Frank Antonucci how much time elapsed between the collision and the arrival of emergency medical technicians.
“It seemed like an eternity,” he said.