Gloucester boat dealer speaks out after Amazon truck crash

GLOUCESTER, Va. (WAVY) — Staff at Friday's Malise Marine were enjoying their Memorial Day holiday when they got a call that morning, letting them know that an Amazon semi-truck ran a red light, went off the road and smashed into eight of their boats. "Worse than I expected," said Cole Malise, owner of Friday's Malise Marine. "Knocked out the sign, leaked diesel fuel all over the asphalt. You could take your foot and push it. … It's not good." Virginia State Police told 10 On Your Side that the Amazon truck hit an SUV, then smashed into the row of boats. Everyone inside the SUV had minor injuries. No one at Friday's Malise Marine was hurt. The Amazon driver was also unhurt, but is now facing a chargeof failure to obey a highway sign. "I was the first person here, and when I got here, I realized how bad it was," said William Clarke of Friday's Malise Marine. "There was an 18-wheeler on top of all the boats, pretty much — real big mess. It took us about four, five hours to clean it up." "Good news of the situation is it was all new boats owned by Malise Marine," Malise said. "It didn't hit any customer's boats." Of the eight damaged boats, two are unsellable. "It hit so hard that it knocked this 450 exactly where it is right now," Clarke said. "This motor weighs about a thousand pounds. It sheered it clean off of the engine-mounting bracket and it landed inside of the boat. Pretty crazy." For this small business, being out two boats is a major hit. "Kind of a hit right in the middle of our sales season because this is our busiest time of the year," Malise said. Tow truck driver Jason Miller said it took two rotators to get this cleaned up. "One rotator to lift the trailer, then we were able to get the boats out," Miller said. "Then the other rotator we used to pull the truck from under the trailer sideways to get that out of the way. And then we went in there, pulled back out on [Route] 17, re-positioned the one rotator to throw the trailer back around and into the parking lot so we could safely pull it out." Miller said it is not the first time he's dealt with an Amazon truck. "We've done quite a few Amazon trucks," he recalled. "I would say this is probably our third one in less than a year, ... with their drivers just being underpaid, running on endless hours, not being trained properly." The owners of the boat dealership are still figuring out how to move forward.