The Newsmakers Read Online Free PDF Page A

“This is Erica Sparks reporting from Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan, where a luncheon is being held in honor of the Duchess of Cambridge, better known to most Americans as Kate Middleton.” Erica walks a few steps down the promenade and gestures to the park. “This piece of land has hosted a great deal of history. Today it welcomes the British, but on November 25, 1783, great crowds gathered here to watch the last British troops leave after their defeat in the Revolutionary War. The patriots jeered King George’s vanquished army as it sailed away, and in response one of the British warships fired a cannonball at the crowd. It was the last shot fired in the war—and it fell far short of land. Later that day George Washington marched triumphantly down the island of Manhattan and claimed the battery as American soil. Today the future Queen of England returns to reclaim the land—over a lunch of poached salmon and baby vegetables—”
    Suddenly screams, screams of terror, fill the soft spring air. Like a great crashing wave, they grow louder, stronger, more panicked. Erica looks around wildly and sees the Staten Island ferryboat heading full speed ahead, not toward its berth in the terminal, but directly toward the seawall that encircles the park. The passengers on deck are screaming, and now the pedestrians in the park are screaming too, running, running away from the hulking tons of steel heading right at them.
    Erica lowers her mic and cries, “Get the shot, Manny! Go live, Lesli!” Then she raises the mic. “We’re witnessing a tragedy unfolding as a Staten Island ferryboat seems to be off course, out of control, and unable to stop.”
    The boat makes a desperate last-second attempt to veer back toward open water, but it’s too late. It slams into the seawall, tossing scores of passengers like rag dolls into the choppy harbor waters. Erica watches as a man is crushed between the boat’s steel and the seawall’s stone. The boat grinds along the seawall for what seems like an eternity before finally slowing and stopping with a fierce rumbling shudder. Inside the upper-deck cabin Erica can see crumpled and flailing bodies. Other passengers were thrown onto land by the impact. Screams of agony fill the air.
    Erica continues to broadcast. “A Staten Island ferry has just crashed into the Battery Park seawall, killing and injuring many of the passengers.”
    As she speaks, scores of New Yorkers and tourists rush toward the carnage. They staunch wounds with anything available, often articles of their own clothing, offering comfort and calling for help on their cell phones. Erica sees several people jump into the water to rescue the drowning.
    A young Asian girl— she’s Jenny’s age —is lying on the ground, blood pouring from a head wound, her right leg twisted backward at an ominous angle. Erica shouts to Manny, “Don’t follow me—stay on the boat,” drops her mic, and runs to the child. She kneels beside her. “You’re going to be okay, sweet baby. You’re going to be okay.” Erica’s dress is useless as a tourniquet, so she tears off the girl’s blouse, rolls it up, and wraps it around the child’s head, pressing on the wound. She cradles the girl to her chest. “You’re going to be okay, sweet thing, you’re going to be okay.”
    Now the girl starts to cry, to wail, “Mommy? Daddy!”
    â€œWe’re going to find them, sweet girl, don’t you worry. We’re going to find your mommy and daddy. You’re going to be okay, baby girl. I promise, you’re going to be okay.”
    Now the air is pierced with a hundred sirens as ambulances, fire trucks, and police cars pour onto the scene. Two EMTs run to Erica and the girl; they load the child onto a stretcher with something close to tenderness. As they carry her away, the girl reaches out to Erica, who