By The Associated Press

Published: Wednesday, January 9, 2013, 8:38 p.m.
Updated: Wednesday, January 9, 2013

NEW YORK — 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, seriously injuring 11 people, including one who suffered a severe head wound falling down a stairwell.

Scores of people who had been standing, waiting to disembark, were hurled to the deck or into walls by the impact, which occurred after the catamaran Seastreak Wall Street slowed on a routine trip across New York Bay and past the Statue of Liberty, passengers said.

“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, of Neptune City, N.J.

The crash, which ripped open a small part of the hull like an aluminum can, happened at 8:45 a.m. at a pier near the South Street Seaport, at Manhattan's southern tip.

About 70 people suffered minor injuries, and for nearly two hours paramedics treated bruised and dazed passengers on the pier.

Firefighters carried several patients on flat-board stretchers as a precaution. Other patients left in wheelchairs.

The cause of the crash is under investigation.

The ferry, built in 2003, had recently undergone a major overhaul that gave it new engines and a new propulsion system, but officials said it was too soon to tell whether they played any role in what happened.

Dee Wertz, who was on shore waiting for the ferry, saw the impact. She said that just moments before the ferry 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.”

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