Multiple injured after ferry carrying up to 50 people crashes into boat

US Coast Guard and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission are now investigating

It's reported that a shuttle ferry, which was transporting people to and from Sugar Sand Festival, got smashed into by a private boat, killing one person and injuring at least two dozen more.

The perpetrators fled the scene while the ferry's captain was forced to rest it on a sandbar near the Memorial Causeway bridge.

Clearwater Police Department announced in a statement: "We're working a boat crash off the Memorial Causeway bridge that has resulted in multiple injuries. It's been declared a mass casualty incident by the fire department due to the number of injuries.

"All local hospitals have been notified. Multiple trauma alerts have been called with helicopters transporting two of the more seriously injured."

Officers later located the private boat, which had six non-injured passengers aboard.

Six of the Clearwater Ferry's passengers were described as 'trauma patients', while the remaining group was assessed and treated by 10 ambulance and emergency service vehicles.

This included Marco Vacheco, who was travelling with his pregnant wife Brenda Alvarez and their two children at the time. Reliving this shocking event, he told 10 Tampa Bay: "It was like a big yacht, it hit from behind. Like it came through where the captain sits, like he was pinned down."

Speaking to ABC Action News, Alvarez worryingly claimed she hadn't felt the baby move since the crash and would be heading to hospital right away.

She couldn't comprehend "how fast [the other boat] was going, how that was even logically possible. It's horrible. It shattered, it shattered the whole back of the boat, left a huge dent."

The US Coast Guard and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission have since launched an investigation.