October 15, 2003
Breaking News: Staten Island Ferry Crash
A Staten Island Ferry crashed into wood pilings at the ferry slip in Staten Island. So far, one death is reported and there are multiple injuries , including limb and leg amputations. People jumped from the ferry. According to NY1, all ferry service is suspend. One passenger told NY1:
I was sitting on the lower level on the left hand side when all of a sudden on the right hand side we hit the pilings. Everybody's screaming. The pilings protruded through the right hand side of the boat. Everybody jumped for their lives. The people on the right side of the boat, people were piling up, scrambling over each other. The whole side of the boat looked like a can opener opened. If I had been sitting on the right side of the boat, I'd have been dead. You could see some people were not going to make it. Some people clearly were not going to make it.
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FDNY source is saying 14 dead:
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/news/wabc_101503_ferryax.html
A question to Emergency/Hospital professionals: since the ferry crashed on Staten Island, why are they taking patients (only 34 people, not a huge number) to St. Vincents all the way back in Manhattan?? Are there no hospitals available that are closer on Staten Island?
St. Vincent's Staten Island
I don't go to Staten Island often, but on a couple of occasions I noticed that the ferry was going especially fast and bumped into the landing area very hard. . . I thought I was just being paranoid. Maybe I am. I heard that the ferry operator fled the scene, so who knows. It is terrible news.
I've had some scares with careless/reckless piloting on the NY Waterway ferries between NYC & Hudson County - but maybe because they're so much smaller it's harder to crash them. Terrible news.