NEW YORK (AP)
-- A high-speed ferry loaded with hundreds of commuters from New Jersey
crashed into a dock in lower Manhattan on Wednesday during the morning
rush hour, injuring around 50 people, at least two critically.
Passengers
aboard the Seastreak Wall Street said scores of people who had been
standing, waiting to disembark, were hurled to the deck by the impact.
"We
were pulling into the dock. The boat hit the dock. We just tumbled on
top of each other. I got thrown into everybody else. ... People were
hysterical, crying," said Ellen Foran, 57, of Neptune City, N.J.
The
accident, which ripped open part the boat's hull like an aluminum can,
happened at 8:45 a.m. at a pier near the South Street Seaport, at
Manhattan's southern tip.
Firefighters were still carrying people away on flat-board stretchers an hour after the crash.
More
than 340 passengers and five crew members were aboard the ferry, which
had arrived from Atlantic Highlands, a part of the Jersey Shore still
struggling to recover from Superstorm Sandy.
Passenger
Frank McLaughlin, 46, whose home was filled with 5 feet of water in the
storm, said he was thrown forward and wrenched his knee in the impact.
He said some other passengers were bloodied when they banged into walls and toppled to the floor.
Dee
Wertz, who was on shore waiting for the ferry, saw the impact. She said
that just moments before it hit, she had been having a conversation
with a ferry employee about how the boat's captains had been complaining
lately about its maneuverability.
"He was
telling me that none of these guys like this boat," she said. "It was
coming in a little wobbly. It hit the right side of the boat on the dock
hard, like a bomb."
After the impact, the boat was able to dock normally. Wertz said passengers raced off once the ramp was down.
"I think people just wanted to get the heck off the boat as soon as they could," she said.
People
answering the phone at Seastreak's offices in New Jersey referred
questions to a lawyer, who did not immediately return phone messages.
Ferry
accidents happen every few years in New York. In 2003, 11 people were
killed when a Staten Island Ferry crashed into a pier on Staten Island
after its pilot passed out at the wheel. Three people were badly hurt
and about 40 injured when the same ferry hit the same pier in 2010,
because of a mechanical problem.
The National Transportation Safety Board said it had dispatched investigators to the scene.
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