14-year-old Texas boy killed in ‘ghastly’ boat crash on Lake Austin

A Texas teen was found dead Monday after a fatal boat crash on Lake Austin the night before.

Kaden Forke, 14, was recovered from the water Monday night and pronounced dead on the scene, according to police.

Forke was on a boat with six other people on Sunday evening when it lost control while going over another boat’s wake and crashed into a bank of trees, said Ken Campbell, assistant chief of the CE-Bar Fire Department.

The rescue mission turned into a recovery late Sunday as divers searched for the missing boy.

Two people onboard the boat were transported to the hospital with serious injuries, two with potentially serious injuries and two refused medical care, according to the Austin-Travis County EMS.

Forke’s body was found in Austin’s Commons Ford Ranch Metropolitan Park, according to reports.

Campbell said Lake Austin is narrow and gets crowded with cross currents and cross wakes, KXAN Austin reported.

“If you’re just plowing down the lake as fast as you can go, you’re going to have an accident — even if you’re going slow you can have an accident because there’s a lot of traffic and a lot of things to avoid,” said Campbell.

A GoFundMe for Forke has raised nearly $30,000. The teen was set to start high school this past Wednesday.

“We ask that you please keep Kaden, his parents Jennifer and Clay, and their entire family in your thoughts and prayers,” the fundraiser site read.

Forke graduated from Lake Travis Elementary in May and was an athlete and member of the Audio Visual Production/Broadcast program. In a statement, the school called his death a “tragic loss for our school community.”

James Wood, a personal injury lawyer, boated past the wreckage on Sunday night just after it happened.

He described the scene as “ghastly,” with the boat tangled among the Cypress trees lining the lake.

“My son was on board and to think of another family having a child underwater was just gut-wrenching,” Wood told WXAN.