POMPANO BEACH, Fla.—An end-of-summer Florida vacation ended in tragedy for one Connecticut couple Wednesday when an apparent malfunction turned a parasailing adventure deadly.

Kathleen Miskell, 28, died after breaking loose from her safety restraints when she was parasailing in tandem with her husband Stephen Miskell. The malfunction caused Ms. Miskell to fall 150 feet to the Atlantic Ocean.

Crew aboard the boat towing the couple reeled Mr. Miskell back in, then circled back around to pull Ms. Miskell from the water. CPR was performed on Ms. Miskell, but she could not be revived, according to Pompano Fire Rescue spokeswoman Sandra King.

The company involved in the incident was identified as Wave Blast Water Sports of Pompano Beach.

Jorge Pino, a spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which is investigating the incident, told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel the probe is focusing on the equipment.

“It was a potential malfunction of the harness,” he told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, adding that investigators hadn’t found immediate signs the equipment had broken. “We are going to do a methodical check of each part of the harness, parachute and ropes.”

Mr. Pino told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel that investigators were looking into the company’s safety record “to see if there is a history of violations, but at present that does not seem to be the case.”

Kathleen and Stephen Miskell would have celebrated their third wedding anniversary in October. Kathleen worked as a teacher’s aide at a middle school in Hartford and was supposed to return to work next week. She was also an accomplished Irish step dancer.

Stephen Miskell, 31, a native of Galway, Ireland, owned a tiling business in Wethersfield, Conn., where the couple recently bought a house. The couple were vacationing for a week in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea.

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel

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