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Witnesses reported seeing two men who’d gotten off the vessel before it tipped pulling a third occupant from the water.
“They were able to put a life ring out and pull him into another tugboat,” one witness told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
The witness later told CLIFFVIEW PILOT that the first vessel — a 31-foot version of a tug known as a “push boat” — “came up on the left side of the barge, about 100 yards from the Carnival Miracle,” which was about to weigh anchor for a cruise near the Intrepid and Pier 90.
“The smaller boat appeared to try and line itself up parallel to the work barge,” he said.
“It literally flipped over and launched one member off the boat. I couldn’t tell whether anyone else was still in the boat,” said the witness, a North Jersey law enforcement officer who was on the cruise ship — but will have to remain docked there for the time being, as rescue boats swarm the area.
“The one crew member was floating south parallel to one of the tugs” in the current, he said.
The FDNY and the NYPD commandeered a New York Waterway ferry captained by Thomas Jansen who brought 30 emergency workers from Pier 79 up to Pier 88 to do search and potential rescue, Damiano D’Amante, a spokesman for New York Waterway told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
Thankfully, it wasn’t needed.
The NYPD Harbor Patrol and FDNY also had rescue boats on the scene, which is directly across from the Port Imperial complex of condominiums in West New York, a few blocks north of New York Waterway’s Weehawken ferry station.
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