'Miracle Baby' Still Hospitalized, Shows Some Improvement
Fish & Wildlife Report Expected To Shed Light on Boating Accident
The infant girl that nearly drowned when her family’s Sea-Doo Switch flipped at the mouth of Black Creek is still hospitalized, though she has shown signs of improvement since the August 25 accident.
After being rescued by lieutenants Thomas Gill and Joe Hutchins of Clay County Fire & Rescue, Bianca Grullon was taken first to a local emergency room then to Wolfson Children’s Hospital in Jacksonville.
The Clay Today newspaper dubbed her a “miracle baby” for having survived 10 minutes underwater, but, truth-be-told, the initial prognosis was that her brain was signaling for her lungs to breathe but not much else. She was 16 months old at the time of the accident.
After Wolfson, she was transferred to Brooks Rehabilitation Hospital, also in Jacksonville, where she remains today. Signs that she may be recovering include the fact that she now responds to touch and can follow sounds with her eyes.
Meanwhile, Clay News & Views has learned that her parents have hired a lawyer to sue Bombadier Recreational Products, the Canadian builder of the boat. The hybrid jetski-pontoon vessel has a handling characteristic that can cause it to nosedive and flip over forward while suddenly decelerating.
The five adults on board were thrown clear, but Bianca’s lifejacket pinned her to the floor of the overturned boat until her rescue. She was the only one wearing a lifejacket. None of the adults could swim and themselves had to be rescued by civilians responding from nearby Black Creek Marina before the arrival of the two lieutenants.
Clay News & Views has also learned that Florida Fish and Wildlife’s investigation found two contributing factors to the accident. One factor was a lack of boating experience on the part of Bianca’s father, William Grullon. The other was choppy seas at the place where the boat capsized, waves of up to two feet.
Grullon had purchased a 13-foot model of Sea-Doo Switch earlier in the year. He told investigators that the boat had shown signs that it might have been about to flip during an outing on the water months prior to the accident.
The Fish & Wildlife report, which is in the final stages before public release, does not blame the accident on defective design, though it will note that it is uncommon for boats to flip foward the way this one did. An eerily similar case of a Switch flipping forward happened on a Virginia lake in July. A nine-year-old girl was trapped by her lifejacket in exactly the same manner and was drowned.
At least seven photos of overturned Sea-Doo Switch can be found online. Facebook owners groups aired numerous accounts of Switch flips, almost flips and advice on how to not flip. Since stories about the two accidents hit the news, many of these comments appear to have been scrubbed.

The Fish & Wildlife report will also note that the boat in the Clay County accident was carrying more weight in passengers and gear than the manufacturer’s stated 825-pound capacity. This lapse apparently did not rise to a level which justified any criminal charges against William Grullon, however.
Earlier on the day of the accident, a Fish & Wildlife marine patrol officer had stopped the Grullon boat for a routine safety check while it was on Doctor’s Lake—no citation issued. The officer later told Clay News & Views that he had observed that none of the adults were wearing life jackets but had no idea they could not swim.
(Boats must carry life jackets for everyone onboard, but only children under six must wear them on vessels under 26 feet in length.)
People at Black Creek Marina, at the confluence of Black Creek and the St. Johns River, said they saw the family’s Sea-Doo Switch pass by several times at excessive speed given the two go-slow signs at the approach to the Highway 17 bridge. They also said the county’s marine patrol, which had regularly maintained a presence at that spot, had been absent most of the summer because the regular deputy had been transferred out of the marine unit.
Grullon did not respond to text and phone messages asking for an interview.
Many Switch owners on Facebook defended their boats, attributing forward-flips to weight overcapacity, unskilled boat handling or both.
Bombadier spokesperson, Emilie Proulx, says Sea-Doo Switch watercraft comply with all American Boat & Yacht Council and U.S. Coast Guard regulations regarding flotation testing and weight capacity. “This product has been rigorously tested throughout its development phase and still is today. As such, BRP strongly believes that the SeaDoo Switch watercraft is a well designed and safe product,” Proulx said.
In regard to criminally charging vessel operators following an accident, I do recall some reluctance in the marine enforcement community to do that in cases where tragedy occurred within the family aboard the boat, especially absent truly reckless (vs merely careless) behavior, such as Boating Under the Influence. The feeling was that the family was in enough pain...why pile on?
As to the specific charge of operating an overloaded vessel, gathering the elements required to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt could be harder than one might think - everyone and everything aboard would have to be accurately weighed and tallied up. Defense attorney could object if the weighing wasn't done at the accident scene using a traceable certified scale - equipment not readily available to marine crash investigators.