According to St. Mary’s Sheriff’s Corporal Jeffrey McLane, Mark Glenn Stinnette fell over backwards into the water, came up one time and then went down and never resurfaced. There are conflicting reports from authorities and from persons on the scene as to whether the man had climbed onto a pier at Sandgates Inn before he jumped backwards into the water or whether he jumped backwards off a 21 foot outboard boat.

Another person on the boat attempted to find the man in the water after he didn’t come up but could not and called for rescue personnel.

Witnesses at the scene said that the two men had arrived on a boat which had come from Solomon’s to Sandgates Inn and was about 30 feet off shore when the man fell off the boat. One witness said that the two men were in the water pulling the boat, indicating that they had either run out of gas or had engine trouble.
"We saw a man thrashing around in the water where they had been walking but we thought it was just the two men playing around," said one teenager who was at the scene. "The next thing we knew, the firetrucks were coming down the hill."

One man at the scene said that both the victim and his companion had been drinking and horseplay was involved in the death.

The Seventh District fireboat launched at the public boat ramp located in the middle of Cape St. Mary’s Marina. The last time a fireboat attempted to use the public ramp at that location, the owner of the marina had blocked off the ramp causing concern over the use of the public ramp. 

St. Mary’s Sheriff’s deputies and State Police came to the scene as well as the Calvert County Dive Team, which eventually found the man’s body under the Sandgates Inn pier.
When the man’s body was found, rescuers attempted to revive him by pumping air into him but the effort was to no avail.