Dressed in a bathing suit, Judy Kay Zagorski was looking forward to the day's fishing trip in the Keys with her sister and elderly parents. But she never got to cast a line.

Just 10 minutes after they left the dock about 10 a.m. Thursday, the Michigan tourist's life ended with a freak encounter with a 75-pound spotted eagle ray.

The large, flat fish jumped into the air and struck the sisters who were sitting together in front of the console of a 25-foot fishing boat going about 25 mph. The rented boat was headed out Key Colony Beach Channel to the Atlantic Ocean.

Zagorski's sister survived, suffering a bad bruise. She was treated and released from Fishermen's Hospital. But Zagorski wasn't as fortunate.

''The officer on scene said she fell and maybe struck her head, too,'' said Bobby Dube, spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. ``There was a lot of blood on the boat.''

Investigators say they think the force of the fish likely caused her to hit her head on a metal rail on the side of the boat.

Family members performed CPR while her father drove the boat to the dock just one block from the family's rented house on Fifth Avenue Ocean in Marathon. Their cell phone couldn't get service, so neighbor Jim Corcoran called 911. He said rescue emergency personnel arrived within minutes.

But it was too late. Zagorski, 55, of Pigeon, Mich., was already dead. Investigators did not find any visible signs of barb wounds. An autopsy will be performed Friday.

''Her parents would visit the Keys every year,'' said neighbor Marcia Corcoran. ``The girls came down to visit them. What a nice family.''

The Corcorans said a third sister was en route to join the family, not knowing about the accident.

''To lose a child just leaves the parents numb,'' Marcia Corcoran said. ``I can hardly believe it myself.''

Officials of the FWC say that type of accident is so rare they can't remember a similar one dating back at least 20 years.

''It's so unusual, so rare, so bizarre,'' FWC spokesperson Jorge Pino said in front of the coral-colored vacation house the family is renting. ``We see them jump out of the water all the time, but never seen them impact a human being or cause a death. She was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.''

Spotted eagle rays are capable of leaping completely out of the water when pursued. They swim by flying gracefully through the water via the undulation of the pectoral fins.

''They naturally jump out of the water, like porpoises do,'' Dube said. ``It's natural to them and quite spectacular to watch.''

Marcia Corcoran said the ray was so big it took up about half of the front of the boat. The ray, which had about a 6-foot wingspan, also was dead at the scene, along with a remora (known as a suckerfish) that had attached itself to the fin of the ray.

The ray was put on a FWC boat and was taken out to sea where its body will be dumped.

A spotted eagle ray stung a Broward County man in October 2006, piercing his chest with its toxic barb.

The 30-pound stringray leapt into James Bertakis' boat while the 81-year-old man was on the water near Lighthouse Point with his granddaughter and one of her friends. The foot-long barb stuck into Bertakis' chest and entered his heart chamber.

Bertakis, now 83, has made an almost full recovery, according to son Jim Bertakis. After several weeks in intensive care followed by in-patient rehabilitation, the elder Bertakis is ''90 percent'' better, his son said. He even has been back on the water in his 16-foot boat.

''Dad's doing great. I just saw him three days ago,'' Jim Bertakis said Thursday from Michigan. ``It's a miracle he survived. We smile every time we see him.''