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Rod-64
10-15-2003, 04:21 PM
http://g.msn.com/0US!s8.559_6211/23.c40/1??cm=TodayOnMSN

King Kuracz
10-15-2003, 11:46 PM
Gotta admire the second in command for having enough sense to try and spare himself the grief and trying to off himself.
NOTE TO DUMBASS.........
NEVER TRY TO COMMIT SUICIDE WITH A PELLET GUN.

MagicMtnDan
10-16-2003, 05:42 AM
October 16, 2003 -- The pilot of the Staten Island Ferry that crashed yesterday killing 10 people and injuring 42 claims he accidentally shifted into full throttle after blacking out, sending the massive vessel hurtling into the St. George pier and ripping open its side, The Post has learned.
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As terrified passengers plunged into New York Harbor's chilly waters to escape the disaster, pilot Richard Jeffrey Smith raced home and tried to kill himself by slitting his wrists and shooting himself twice in the chest with a pellet gun.
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"Things like this happen in Bangladesh, where the equipment is old and broken down, but in America it should never have happened," said Ashraful Hassan, a Bangladeshi who was desperately searching for a missing friend.
The disaster occurred at 3:20 p.m. as the 300-foot Andrew J. Barberi was on a routine run from Manhattan.
Smith told investigators he failed to take his medication for high blood pressure and, as a result, lost consciousness.
When he came to, he said, he accidentally shifted the throttle into high speed, sending the vessel crashing into wooden pilings at the pier, police sources said.
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The pilings ripped through the ferry's metal skin, crushing some passengers and decapitating others. Some had their limbs sheared off; others were trapped under the rubble and had to be cut out by rescuers.
"Oh, s-t," the pilot shouted before shutting down his engine, an eyewitness told police, according to a source.
The ferry captain, Michael Gansas, said he tried to grab the controls just before the crash. But Smith and one of the ferry's mates, Robert Rush, said Gansas was not nearby, a police source said.
After the crash, a panicked Smith headed for his car and raced to his home in the Westerleigh section of Staten Island.
When he got there, he phoned his wife and said, "I'm sorry."
She raced home - and found some deckhands already there, said police sources.
The deckhands kicked open a locked bathroom, where Smith was bleeding on the floor.
They called 911, and Smith was rushed to Staten Island University Hospital, where he was in critical condition after undergoing surgery.
A neighbor, Cheryl Syvertson, called Smith "a nice family guy."
"He came home, went into his room and hurt himself," she said. "He must have been overwrought."
The 300-foot-long ferry - the Andrew J. Barberi - crashed on a windswept afternoon when the water in the harbor was unusually choppy.
After the tragedy, mutilated passengers lay sprawled on the deck.
"I saw people decapitated and bent in half," said passenger Frank Corchado of Staten Island.
"I saw a woman who had both her legs cut off. She was screaming."
Corchado, an elevator mechanic, was taking a nap when he heard the boat hit the pier.
"People started running," he said. "There were people lying everywhere, dead and maimed. I saw people with no arms, no head. I've been crying for three hours."
Another eyewitness, Ronald Smith, 49, of St. George, said the ferry appeared to have gone out of control as it approached the pier.
"The boat started spinning, the wind was very, very heavy," he said.
He said people began to panic.
"Yelling ain't even the word. Screaming ain't even the word. It was beyond yelling and screaming. It was like cattle stampeding," he said.
Mayor Bloomberg called the crash "a terrible tragedy."
"People on their way home, all of a sudden taken from us," he said.
The mayor said the deaths and injuries were probably caused by the huge wooden pilings surrounding the dock that stabbed into the lower deck.
Passenger Sean Johnson was headed home from his job when the boat crashed into the wooden pilings.
"There was an explosion and the whole pier crashed in," he said. "I ran like hell, but there were people sitting right behind me who didn't make it. I was running for my life."
Some passengers plunged from the shattered vessel into the water to avoid the enormous pilings tearing through the boat.
Officials said the ferry appeared to be off-course and crashed into a service pier about 50 feet away from its destination.
Rescue operations began after the ferry was moved to the docking pier.
Trapped commuters had to be pulled out by firefighters.
"The boat just imploded," said Johnson, who described a gaping 15-foot-high hole on the front of the ferry's hull.
"There were beams, concrete, everything. The whole thing came in through the window. The chairs flipping, windows collapsed. It was sick, right out of a movie.
"The whole concrete pier went straight through the boat," he added. "There was no horn, no signal, no nothing. We were going at full speed.
"People were hit behind me, they were pinned under the debris. There was nothing, no warning, nothing. There was blood everywhere, man."
Firefighters treated some survivors who had wound up in the water for hypothermia.
The Andrew J. Barberi ferry, which has three levels, has a capacity of 6,000.
Ferry service was suspended temporarily. It was scheduled to resume at 5 a.m.
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JetBoatRich
10-16-2003, 05:52 AM
What a sad story, he blames it on his lack of medication. This is who I want driving me around :mad:
Your heart has to go out to the families