diff --git a/spacy/pipeline/entity_linker.py b/spacy/pipeline/entity_linker.py
index f2dae0529..76ccc3247 100644
--- a/spacy/pipeline/entity_linker.py
+++ b/spacy/pipeline/entity_linker.py
@@ -474,18 +474,24 @@ class EntityLinker(TrainablePipe):
 
                 # Looping through each entity in batch (TODO: rewrite)
                 for j, ent in enumerate(ent_batch):
-                    sent_index = sentences.index(ent.sent)
-                    assert sent_index >= 0
+                    assert hasattr(ent, "sents")
+                    sents = list(ent.sents)
+                    sent_indices = (
+                        sentences.index(sents[0]),
+                        sentences.index(sents[-1]),
+                    )
+                    assert sent_indices[1] >= sent_indices[0] >= 0
 
                     if self.incl_context:
                         # get n_neighbour sentences, clipped to the length of the document
-                        start_sentence = max(0, sent_index - self.n_sents)
+                        start_sentence = max(0, sent_indices[0] - self.n_sents)
                         end_sentence = min(
-                            len(sentences) - 1, sent_index + self.n_sents
+                            len(sentences) - 1, sent_indices[1] + self.n_sents
                         )
                         start_token = sentences[start_sentence].start
                         end_token = sentences[end_sentence].end
                         sent_doc = doc[start_token:end_token].as_doc()
+
                         # currently, the context is the same for each entity in a sentence (should be refined)
                         sentence_encoding = self.model.predict([sent_doc])[0]
                         sentence_encoding_t = sentence_encoding.T
diff --git a/spacy/tests/pipeline/test_entity_linker.py b/spacy/tests/pipeline/test_entity_linker.py
index 2a6258386..fc960cb01 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/pipeline/test_entity_linker.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/pipeline/test_entity_linker.py
@@ -1,9 +1,9 @@
-from typing import Callable, Iterable, Dict, Any
+from typing import Callable, Iterable, Dict, Any, Tuple
 
 import pytest
 from numpy.testing import assert_equal
 
-from spacy import registry, util
+from spacy import registry, util, Language
 from spacy.attrs import ENT_KB_ID
 from spacy.compat import pickle
 from spacy.kb import Candidate, InMemoryLookupKB, get_candidates, KnowledgeBase
@@ -108,18 +108,23 @@ def test_issue7065():
 
 
 @pytest.mark.issue(7065)
-def test_issue7065_b():
+@pytest.mark.parametrize("entity_in_first_sentence", [True, False])
+def test_sentence_crossing_ents(entity_in_first_sentence: bool):
+    """Tests if NEL crashes if entities cross sentence boundaries and the first associated sentence doesn't have an
+    entity.
+    entity_in_prior_sentence (bool): Whether to include an entity in the first sentence associated with the
+    sentence-crossing entity.
+    """
     # Test that the NEL doesn't crash when an entity crosses a sentence boundary
     nlp = English()
     vector_length = 3
-    nlp.add_pipe("sentencizer")
     text = "Mahler 's Symphony No. 8 was beautiful."
-    entities = [(0, 6, "PERSON"), (10, 24, "WORK")]
-    links = {
-        (0, 6): {"Q7304": 1.0, "Q270853": 0.0},
-        (10, 24): {"Q7304": 0.0, "Q270853": 1.0},
-    }
-    sent_starts = [1, -1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]
+    entities = [(10, 24, "WORK")]
+    links = {(10, 24): {"Q7304": 0.0, "Q270853": 1.0}}
+    if entity_in_first_sentence:
+        entities.append((0, 6, "PERSON"))
+        links[(0, 6)] = {"Q7304": 1.0, "Q270853": 0.0}
+    sent_starts = [1, -1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0]
     doc = nlp(text)
     example = Example.from_dict(
         doc, {"entities": entities, "links": links, "sent_starts": sent_starts}
@@ -145,31 +150,14 @@ def test_issue7065_b():
 
     # Create the Entity Linker component and add it to the pipeline
     entity_linker = nlp.add_pipe("entity_linker", last=True)
-    entity_linker.set_kb(create_kb)
+    entity_linker.set_kb(create_kb)  # type: ignore
     # train the NEL pipe
     optimizer = nlp.initialize(get_examples=lambda: train_examples)
     for i in range(2):
-        losses = {}
-        nlp.update(train_examples, sgd=optimizer, losses=losses)
+        nlp.update(train_examples, sgd=optimizer)
 
-    # Add a custom rule-based component to mimick NER
-    patterns = [
-        {"label": "PERSON", "pattern": [{"LOWER": "mahler"}]},
-        {
-            "label": "WORK",
-            "pattern": [
-                {"LOWER": "symphony"},
-                {"LOWER": "no"},
-                {"LOWER": "."},
-                {"LOWER": "8"},
-            ],
-        },
-    ]
-    ruler = nlp.add_pipe("entity_ruler", before="entity_linker")
-    ruler.add_patterns(patterns)
-    # test the trained model - this should not throw E148
-    doc = nlp(text)
-    assert doc
+    # This shouldn't crash.
+    entity_linker.predict([example.reference])  # type: ignore
 
 
 def test_no_entities():