A WOMAN has bled to death after the propeller of the boat towing her sliced open her leg during a ‘donut’ inflatable ride off the Costa Blanca.
The 36-year-old, who lived in nearby Denia, had been sailing with a group of friends near Javea on Sunday, July 5, when the inflatable capsized.
Guardia Civil say it happened in the La Caleta area, roughly 400 metres off Javea’s coast and close to the town’s port.
She and several others were thrown into the water as the float flipped over.
As the boat turned back to pick them up, its propeller struck her, severing the femoral artery — the main blood vessel running through the leg, a wound that causes catastrophic blood loss within minutes.
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Her friends pulled her from the water and raced back to Javea port themselves rather than wait for help to arrive.
Valencia’s maritime rescue coordination centre had already scrambled the lifeboat Salvamar Fenix after a 112 call, but the group’s own boat reached port first.
Cruz Roja volunteers and an emergency medical team tried to stop the bleeding on the quayside.
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They could not save her, and she was pronounced dead at the port.
Investigating the case is the Guardia Civil’s Policia Judicial unit in Altea, which handles serious inquiries across the district.
Investigators believe the death was accidental, though the exact sequence of events is still being examined.
Salvamento Maritimo made an unusually direct appeal for caution afterwards.
“We ask for prudence, good sense and plenty of nautical safety,” it said online.
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It is not the first such tragedy to strike Javea’s waters in the past year.
On August 10, 2025, a 60-year-old man had part of his foot amputated after a propeller struck him at La Granadella, another bay along the same coastline, and was airlifted to La Fe Hospital in Valencia.
As The Olive Press reported at the time, a 34-year-old woman from Murcia died in near-identical circumstances less than two weeks later after falling from a yacht near Cap Prim, a headland between the Sardinera and Portitxol bays on Javea’s coast, and being struck by its propeller.
It is the second fatal boat propeller accident, and the third overall, to hit this stretch of Costa Blanca coastline in under a year.
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