CINCINNATI -- It was a moment just like any other.
AJ McCarron's dad and a friend had just purchased a pair of new WaveRunners. Anxious to take theirs out for a spin one hot August Sunday in their native Mobile, Alabama, Tony McCarron, his 5-year-old son AJ and one of AJ's cousins dropped the watercraft into nearby Dog River, a Mobile Bay estuary that features a series of sharp turns and low-built piers, and jumped on board to see what it could do.
Minutes later, little AJ was floating face down in the river with his left eye dangling out its socket, and other parts of his face crushed by the impact of a sudden, high-speed collision.