THE MISSING LIFE JACKETS: Details from the scene are raising questions about the two siblings’ final moments!
THE MISSING LIFE JACKETS: Details from the scene are raising questions about the two siblings’ final moments!
Mya, 9, and Sigmund, 7, were thrown from their boat in the middle of Barnegat Bay at night. During the rescue, the location and status of their life jackets emerged as a crucial detail.
Investigators are piecing together those final minutes—specifically, how the life jackets were being used and what happened before the children fell into the water.
The discovery of two life jackets changed everything.
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In the chaotic minutes after a boat struck an illuminated channel marker on Barnegat Bay on the night of July 19, 2026, one detail from the rescue scene has drawn particular scrutiny: the life jackets belonging to 9-year-old Mya Bella Golabek and her 7-year-old brother, Sigmund Paul Golabek. Both children were thrown into the dark water. Both were recovered unresponsive. And at the shoreline near MJ’s Restaurant Bar and Grill, where first responders worked frantically, the position and condition of at least one life jacket became a visible, noted element of the effort to save them.
According to statements Stephen Schneider later gave investigators, the children were wearing life jackets when he seated them at the front of his Tidewater center-console boat for the short ride home after dinner. Court documents summarizing the affidavit of probable cause repeat that account: the siblings were positioned in the bow and had life jackets on at the time of the collision. Schneider said he was traveling at approximately 20 mph when the starboard bow struck Intracoastal Waterway channel marker No. 39. The force of the impact ejected both children into the bay.
When Schneider and his wife, Laurie, searched the water in the darkness, they located Sigmund first and then Mya. Both were face-down and unresponsive. CPR began immediately. As firefighters arrived and entered the water to assist, Berkeley Township Councilman James Byrnes observed a critical scene detail. “The one child had a life jacket next to him,” Byrnes told News 12 New Jersey. “Of course, with CPR being performed, they’re going to remove it.” That observation—that a life jacket was beside one of the children rather than still secured on the body—has become one of the more closely examined points from the rescue.
Life jackets (personal flotation devices) are designed to keep a person’s head above water and to improve the chances of survival after ejection or falls overboard. In New Jersey, children under a certain age are generally required to wear them while on a vessel underway. Schneider’s account indicates compliance at the moment the boat left the dock area near the restaurant. Yet the presence of a life jacket next to a child during CPR raises practical questions about what occurred in the water and during recovery. Jackets can shift, loosen, or be partially dislodged by the force of an impact or by currents. They are routinely removed once a victim is on a hard surface so that chest compressions and airway management can be performed effectively. Byrnes’s comment aligns with standard emergency medical practice: a jacket that interferes with resuscitation is taken off.
Investigators have worked to reconstruct those final minutes using Schneider’s statements, the timing of the 9:09 p.m. emergency call, the observations of first responders, and the physical evidence at the scene. The children were seated forward, where the impact forces would have been most abrupt. Both were recovered from the water and brought toward shore or onto the boat for CPR. One jacket was noted beside a child as resuscitative efforts continued. The second child’s jacket status at the exact moment of recovery has been less specifically described in public accounts, though Schneider maintained both had been wearing them when the ride began.
The discovery and positioning of the life jackets did not change the medical outcome. Continuous CPR was performed from the water recovery through transport to Community Medical Center in Toms River. Both children were pronounced dead. The jackets, however, remain relevant to understanding the sequence. If the devices were properly worn and secured at the moment of ejection, they should have provided buoyancy. That the children were found face-down and unresponsive suggests possible contributing factors such as the force of the collision, the time spent in the water before recovery, potential trauma, or the challenges of locating two small bodies in darkness on the bay. A jacket found beside a child during CPR does not necessarily mean it had never been worn; it can indicate removal for medical reasons or displacement during the event.
Public discussion and early reporting sometimes framed the jackets as a point of uncertainty—“Did the children have life jackets on?”—because initial statements from authorities did not always detail the flotation devices. Later court documents and Schneider’s own account to police clarified that he had placed the children in life jackets at the front of the boat. The on-scene observation by Byrnes provided independent confirmation that at least one jacket was present and visible during the rescue. Together, these elements form the current public picture: jackets were put on before departure; the children were ejected while (according to the operator) wearing them; recovery occurred; and during CPR at least one jacket was positioned next to a child rather than remaining on the body.
No public evidence has emerged that the jackets were absent from the boat or never provided. The phrase “missing life jackets” in some discussions appears to stem more from the visual of a jacket lying beside a child during resuscitation than from any confirmed failure to equip the children. Investigators continue to examine the precise mechanics of the ejection, the condition of the flotation devices, and the timeline between impact and recovery. Those details help reconstruct the children’s final moments in the water and the immediate response that followed.
The life jackets stand as both a point of compliance in the operator’s account and a somber marker of the limits of safety equipment. Even when worn, they cannot eliminate every risk of a high-force collision at night or the consequences of immersion when recovery is not instantaneous. In the case of Mya and Sigmund Golabek, the jackets were part of the story from the moment the boat left the vicinity of the restaurant until the desperate efforts on shore. Their location and status during the rescue remain among the specific details investigators have used to map those critical minutes on Barnegat Bay.
The documented record shows Schneider stating the children wore life jackets, court summaries repeating that claim, and an eyewitness account of one jacket beside a child during CPR. Those facts form the basis for ongoing questions about the precise sequence of the children’s final moments after they left the boat and entered the dark water.
