CSI in the News - CSI Today

Desperate warning as
Staten Island ferry
crashes, 'Brace
yourself!'
BY Kate Nocera, Erica Pearson and Jonathan Lemire
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Originally Published:Saturday, May 8th 2010, 11:14
PM
Updated: Sunday, May 9th 2010, 1:42 AM
blared the boat's horn and ordered the
crew to push passengers away from the
front of the out-of-control ship.
"It was coming in [to dock], but it wasn't
slowing down," said Danyelle Tellefson, 18,
who was traveling to Staten Island to visit
her mom for Mother's Day.
"A guy came by yelling 'Brace yourself!
Brace yourself!'" Tellefson said. "We all ran
to the back, and it smashed into the dock."
Many of the 252 passengers on board the
9 a.m. ferry to Staten Island - some
traveling for work and some to visit loved
ones - first had an inkling something was
wrong when the boat did not slow down as
they approached the terminal.
"I opened the door to see the front [of the
boat] but I didn't see him stopping," said
Jose Rivera, 45, a carpenter from Brooklyn.
"I asked, 'Isn't he going to slow down?'"
Kurdzuk/The Star-LedgerDamage on the starboard
side of the Staten Island Ferry Andrew J. Barberi after
crashing into it's slip causing over 60 injuries.
They had almost no warning.
Seconds before the Staten Island ferry
slammed into a pier, the captain frantically
As the Andrew J. Barberi bore down on the
ferry terminal, the normal prerecorded
message that asks passengers to prepare
for landing was interrupted by a voice
repeating the word "red" several times,
commuters said.
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