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10 killed as ferry hits NY dock

AP, New York
A Staten Island ferry slammed into a pier as it was docking Wednesday, killing at least 10 people, tearing off victims' limbs and reducing the front of the mighty vessel to a tangled mass of wood, glass and steel. At least 42 people were injured.
The ferry pilot, responsible for docking the vessel, fled the scene immediately after the crash, went to his Staten Island home and attempted suicide by slitting his
wrists and shooting himself with a pellet gun, a police official told The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. The pilot was rushed to the same hospital as many of the victims and underwent surgery.
After interviewing another crew member, authorities began investigating whether the pilot was asleep at the wheel as the boat approached land, a law enforcement source told the AP.
The 310-foot ferry, carrying
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about 1,500 passengers, plowed into the enormous wooden pilings on the Staten Island end of its run from Manhattan at 3:20 p.m., ripping a giant hole in the three-level, bright-orange vessel.
"There was a lady without legs, right in the middle of the boat," said ferry passenger Frank Corchado, 29. "She was screaming. You ever see anything like that?"
Corchado said it felt as if the ferry accelerated as it approached land, waking him as he napped on the trip home to Staten Island. He ran away from the front of the boat to safety, but saw others who weren't as lucky six people dead, including one who had been decapitated.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at least 10 people were killed and 42 injured, making it New York's worst mass-transit accident in nearly a century. Some bodies were accidentally counted twice, leading to an initial report by city officials that 14 people were dead.
The crash happened on a windswept afternoon, with gusts over 40 mph and the water in New York Harbor was very choppy.
The cause of the crash was not immediately known, although Bloomberg suggested the heavy wind as a possibility. The National Transportation Safety Board (news -web sites) convened an accident investigation team, which will look at the weather, among other possible factors.
"It's a terrible tragedy, people who were on the way home, all of a sudden, taken from us," Bloomberg said at a dockside news conference.
He said the ferry's crew will be interviewed and tested for drugs and alcohol.
Firefighters picked their way through the debris aboard the ship, the Andrew J. Barberi, looking for victims, and Coast Guard divers searched the water. At least one body was recovered from the water.
Commuters were trapped in piles of debris aboard the 22-year-old ferry, and victims screamed and dove for cover as metal crunched into wood just before the
start of the evening rush hour, tearing girders and splintering planks.
Hospital officials said at least three victims had limbs severed in the accident, while others were suffering from massive trauma, back and spinal injuries, chest pains and hypothermia. The water temperature was about 62 degrees.
The ferry pilot, identified as Richard Smith, was undergoing surgery at Staten Island University Hospital, said Dr. Pietro Carpenito. The police source said he was taken to the hospital after someone at his home called 911 about an hour after the accident. He bolted the scene so quickly that he left behind his keys, and was forced to break into his home, the law enforcement source said.
New York's worst subway accident occurred in 1918, when a train derailed in Brooklyn, killing 92 people.
A New York City subway crash in 1991 killed five people and injured more than 140. Federal investigators blamed the motorman's heavy drinking and lack of sleep.