Plunged in seconds: Witness reveals the final moments aboard grandfather Stephen Schneide’s boat
Plunged in seconds: Witness reveals the final moments aboard grandfather Stephen Schneide’s boat.
Mya, 9, and Sigmund, 7, had no idea that their trip on Barnegat Bay would be the last time they were with their family.
Following the collision, both were thrown from the boat into the dark water.
Those on board immediately rushed to the rescue, but the darkness and the distance across the water made every second critical.
Details of the 30 seconds following the crash have been revealed—and the situation was even more harrowing than you might imagine.
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**Plunged in seconds: Witness reveals the final moments aboard grandfather Stephen Schneider’s boat**
Mya Bella Golabek, 9, and her younger brother Sigmund Paul Golabek, 7, had no reason to believe their short evening ride across Barnegat Bay would be the last time they were with their family. On the night of 19 July 2026 the two children, both wearing life jackets, were seated in the front of their grandfather’s 28-foot Tidewater Custom 280 center-console boat. Within seconds of a collision with an illuminated channel marker they were thrown into the dark water. Those still on board scrambled to reach them, but the darkness, the distance across the water and the urgency of the moment made every second critical.
Newly released details from 911 recordings and the probable-cause affidavit have filled in the harrowing sequence that followed the impact, offering the clearest public account yet of the critical half-minute after the boat struck the marker.
### The evening that began like any other
The family had gathered for dinner at MJ’s Restaurant Bar and Grill in Berkeley Township, New Jersey. Stephen Schneider, 64, and his wife Laurie arrived by boat. The children’s parents also attended, traveling in a separate vessel. After the meal the two grandchildren expressed a desire to return to their grandparents’ home nearby. Schneider placed Mya and Sigmund in the front of his Tidewater, secured their life jackets, and began the short trip across the bay.
According to the affidavit of probable cause, Schneider later told investigators he was operating the boat at approximately 20 mph. He said the vessel’s radar and an infrared/low-light night navigation camera were both activated. He described himself as someone who had spent his entire life on boats, lived close to the restaurant, and had traveled the same route numerous times. Shortly after 9 p.m. he saw Intracoastal Waterway Channel Marker No. 39 “at the last second.” The starboard bow of the boat struck the single-stanchion illuminated navigational aid.
The force of the collision ejected both children overboard into Barnegat Bay.
The seconds after impact
What followed was a frantic and chaotic effort to recover the children in darkness. Schneider told state police he immediately began searching the water. He located Sigmund first and then Mya. Both were found face-down and unresponsive. CPR was started at once on the boat and continued as emergency responders arrived.
The children’s grandmother, Laurie Schneider, remained on the vessel and placed the emergency call. Newly released 911 recordings capture the urgency and the limited information available in those first moments. In one recording she tells the dispatcher: “We have one on the boat and my husband’s in the water trying to get the other child out.” When the dispatcher asks whether the children are unconscious, she answers, “Yes, yes they are!”
In another portion of the call she works to pinpoint their location: “Stephen, are we near channel marker 39? I think my husband’s in the water trying to get one of the other kids out!” The emergency call was logged at approximately 9:09 p.m. State troopers from the Marine Bureau at Point Pleasant Station and members of the Coast Guard responded. The children were transported to Community Medical Center in Toms River with CPR still in progress. Both were later pronounced dead.
The affidavit and the 911 recordings together describe a sequence measured in seconds rather than minutes: the collision, the ejection of two children into dark water, the immediate entry into the water by their grandfather, the recovery of first one child and then the other, the start of CPR, and the desperate effort to convey location information to emergency services while still on the water near the marker.
### The investigation and the blood evidence
Schneider later told investigators he had consumed three beers — two Guinness and one Miller Lite — over roughly two hours before the crash. A blood sample drawn under an emergency search warrant in the early hours of 20 July returned a blood alcohol concentration of 0.16 percent. That figure is twice New Jersey’s legal limit of 0.08 percent for operating a vessel. Toxicology experts from DrugScan Labs concluded that Schneider’s alertness, sense of care and caution, perception, judgment, response time and coordination were “markedly impaired by alcohol.” He was assessed as unfit to operate a motor vehicle or vessel.
On the basis of the toxicology results and the circumstances of the crash, Schneider was charged with two counts of second-degree reckless vessel homicide, operating a vessel under the influence, and reckless operation of a vessel. If convicted he faces up to 20 years in state prison. He was arrested on 14 August 2026 after the laboratory report was completed. On 19 August, one month to the day after the crash, a Superior Court judge ordered his conditional release pending trial. Prosecutors had argued for continued detention, citing the 0.16 percent BAC and the degree of impairment. The defense noted Schneider’s lack of significant criminal history and presented letters from the children’s parents requesting his release. The judge granted conditional release with restrictions that include a prohibition on operating a boat or motor vehicle pending further evaluation.
### A family’s irreversible loss
Mya and Sigmund were described by relatives as close siblings and best friends who shared laughter, adventures and an unbreakable bond. Their obituaries spoke of a sibling love that lasts forever and of two children who continued their journey together. The children’s parents, who had traveled to the restaurant in a separate boat, were not aboard at the time of the collision. The loss transformed a routine family evening into a permanent absence that has left an entire extended family grieving.
The 911 recordings have provided an unusually direct window into the immediate aftermath. The grandmother’s voice on the line, the effort to confirm the children’s condition, the attempt to identify the exact channel marker, and the knowledge that her husband was in the water searching for the second child form a raw and unfiltered record of those first critical moments. The affidavit supplies the complementary details from Schneider’s own account: the last-second sighting of the marker, the impact, the ejection, the recovery of both children face-down and unresponsive, and the start of CPR.
### Broader questions of safety on the water
The case has drawn attention to the risks of alcohol impairment while operating a vessel, particularly at night. New Jersey sets a legal BAC limit of 0.08 percent for boat operators, the same threshold that applies to motor-vehicle drivers. Authorities have noted that 2026 has already seen multiple boating fatalities in the region. The combination of night-time conditions, a moderate speed, an illuminated but still potentially difficult-to-spot navigational aid, and a measured level of impairment created circumstances in which a momentary failure to detect the marker produced catastrophic results.
Schneider’s attorney has stated that his client will likely never operate a boat again and will never consume alcohol again, describing the loss as having cut to the root of the family. Those statements reflect the personal devastation while the criminal case proceeds on the basis of the evidence, including the blood sample taken in the early morning hours after the crash and the 911 recordings that document the immediate response.
### The record of the final moments
The public record now contains a detailed, if incomplete, picture of the final moments aboard the boat and the seconds that followed. Two children in life jackets were seated in the front. The boat struck an illuminated channel marker. Both children were thrown into the water. Their grandfather entered the water and recovered them. Their grandmother remained on the boat, called 911, confirmed the children were unconscious, and tried to guide responders to channel marker 39 while her husband searched the dark water. CPR began immediately. The children did not survive.
Those details — drawn from the affidavit and the newly released emergency recordings — form the core of what is known about the critical half-minute after impact. The investigation and the court process continue. The family continues to grieve the loss of Mya Bella Golabek, 9, and Sigmund Paul Golabek, 7. The question of how a short evening ride home ended in the water of Barnegat Bay remains the central fact of the case, illuminated now by the voices captured on the 911 line and the sequence reconstructed in the charging documents.
