Tour Boat Overturns After Colliding With Barge
A tourist boat carrying 37 people overturned on the Delaware River on Wednesday afternoon when a barge hit it, leaving two people unaccounted for and the extent of injuries unclear after a frantic rescue effort.
There were 37 people were on the amphibious "duck boat" when it was struck, and two Coast Guard boats were rescuing people from the water, with police and fire crews assisting, Coast Guard Senior Chief Bud Holden said. There were no immediate reports of serious injuries.
A security guard patrolling the waterfront said he saw the accident while making his rounds, spinning around after he heard the screams of other bystanders who saw it first.
"I whirled around as the barge began to run over the duck boat," said Larry Waxmunski, a guard for the Delaware River Waterfront Corp. "After the barge hit it - it almost looked like slow motion - the duck boat began to turn over."
"Fortunately, you began to see the life vests popping up almost immediately," Waxmunski said. He then saw police boats beginning to pluck the tourists out of the water.
Television footage showed at least five people being pulled from the water wearing life vests in an area of the river near the Old City neighborhood, popular with tourists. Helicopter footage showed people in life vests being helped from boats on to a dock and at least one person on a gurney.
Terri Ronna, 45, of Oakland, N.J., said she was on a ferry going from Camden, N.J., across the river to Philadelphia when the captain announced that there was someone overboard from another ship and that they were going to rescue him.
"We were not even halfway over when they said there was somebody overboard and we were going to get them," Ronna said. "There were people all over; we could see all these orange life vests."
© MMX, The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
