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SI FERRY CRASHES INTO PIER

A Staten Island ferry boat carrying hundreds of rush-hour commuters abruptly lost power and slammed into the St. George dock tonight, leaving 15 people with minor injuries, authorities said.

Crew aboard the vessel Sen. John J. Marchi frantically blasted its horn and warned passengers to sit down before the collision, which occurred at 7:11 p.m. at slip number 5 in the St. George ferry terminal.

“A crew member came on the PA system about 25 second before impact and said ‘passengers, hold on, passengers, hold on’ ” said Daniel Kusrow, a commuter aboard the boat “I had a knot in my stomach.”

Then, “There was a big crash . . . the boat was shaking, it was very scary,” said Kohinoor Rahman, 32, a clerk in a snack bar on the Sen. John J. Marchi. “Everybody was running.”

“I saw a cop bleeding from the head,” Rahman said. “I saw two or three people lying on the floor.”

Nallah Nagan, a 52-year-old who operates a snack bar in the St. George terminal, said, “I saw the boat coming in, there was a ‘bang, bang, bang’ and everybody [outside the terminal] ran inside.”

A law enforcement source said, “The boat came in kind of hard when it was docking.”

About 750 people were evacuated from the 310-foot-long boat, which can carry up to 4,400 passengers.

The 15 hurt people who suffered injuries, mostly to the neck and back, were taken to local hospitals.

The city Department of Transportation, which operates the free ferry between Staten Island and lower Manhattan, had no immediate comment. A ferry employee did not know what might have caused power on the boat to cut out.

Ferry service was not interrupted by the crash, which occurred about 26 minutes after the Sen. John J. Marchi had departed Whitehall Terminal in Manhattan.

The St. George terminal was the site of a horrific accident on Oct. 15, 2003, when the Andrew J. Barberi ferry boat smashed at full speed into a maintenance pier after its captain blacked out while on painkiller medication.

Eleven people were killed and scores more were injured that crash, which occurred with about 1,500 passengers aboard.

The accident spurred a slew of passenger lawsuits against the city, which to date has paid out nearly $83 million to settle more than 130 claims.

Additional reporting by Katherine Romero