Randomly die in boats

I am using 1.17.14
Hello, I have been struggling with an issue that has happened several times recently, so I hope you can help me fix it🙂. My friend and I were transporting villagers to our house from about 1000 blocks away on a dirt bridge at about y level 100 to avoid dealing with terrain. We went by on boats (I know, not the best way to travel) and all of the sudden, I died. It said, “Hit the ground too hard” but I did not fall off the bridge nor exited the boat. The villager also died. As I tried again and took another villager back, I finally made it across the bridge and was about to go down a hill on the boat, as the bridge ended on the extreme hills biome. I was slowly dropping from block to block down the mountain, when the same thing happened again. Again, I had not exited the boat or fell too far down the mountain on the boat. I found my boat later on the bottom of the mountain with the villager gone. This was the last villager left… I thought maybe the game had misinterpreted that we had fallen, but I still wouldn’t have taken fall damage, since I was in a boat. Thank you for helping, tell me if you need any other information!