Re: Staten Island Ferry - just found out - prayers needed!!

Your friend is in my prayers.

Please keep us posted on his status.

Re: Staten Island Ferry - just found out - prayers needed!!

That's so sad. I will keep him in my thoughts and prayers!

Re: Staten Island Ferry - just found out - prayers needed!!

Re: Staten Island Ferry - just found out - prayers needed!!

Thoughta and prayers go out to him and all the victimes.

Re: Staten Island Ferry - just found out - prayers needed!!

Re: Staten Island Ferry - just found out - prayers needed!!

How awful....I pray he finds the strenght to get better.

Re: Staten Island Ferry - just found out - prayers needed!!

Re: Staten Island Ferry - just found out - prayers needed!!

i'm so sorry, he will be in my prayers

Re: Staten Island Ferry - just found out - prayers needed!!

Re: Staten Island Ferry - just found out - prayers needed!!

I am sorry to hear that,,,,best wishes!!!

Re: Staten Island Ferry - just found out - prayers needed!!

Re: Staten Island Ferry - just found out - prayers needed!!

It's a horrible tragedy

Re: Staten Island Ferry - just found out - prayers needed!!

Is the friend the one they are taking about on the news tonight. It said that he was actually saved by a woman and his family was on TV saying she was their angel. The guy they were talking about had to have both legs amputated. Is that him? I was almost crying watching the father express his gratitude to the woman who saved him. Very Touching. Parayers to all the victims of that tragic accident!

Re: Staten Island Ferry - just found out - prayers needed!!

How Sad.

Re: Staten Island Ferry - just found out - prayers needed!!

Hero Nurse Visits Ferry Victim She Saved

By VERENA DOBNIK
Associated Press Writer





NEW YORK (AP) -- British tourist Kerry Griffiths held fellow passenger Paul Esposito as he lay bleeding on the floor, his legs crushed by a metal pole that fell on him when the Staten Island ferry smashed into a pier.

She grabbed a belt and tied it around Esposito's limbs above the knee - a tourniquet that stemmed the blood flow, the young man recalled from his hospital bed. Griffiths visited Esposito on Friday, two days after the bloody wreck that killed 10 people and injured dozens more.

'He was dying, but I knew he had a fighting chance,' the 34-year-old nurse said when Esposito, 24, was able to thank her in person.

Griffiths said she ran through the dust and smoke moments after the ferry slammed into a pier Wednesday.

Esposito 'was the first person I saw. He was asking other people to help him,' she said. 'He was not far from dying in front of me, because he needed oxygen. He was about to pass out.'

After making the tourniquet, Griffith got a life preserver and put it under his head, trying to keep him safe from the wind-borne debris flying through the jagged hole in the ship's side.

'I held his hand, I stroked his head and face,' she said. 'And I put a chair in front of him, so he couldn't see the dead body just in front of us.'

A screaming woman lay nearby, her body sheared off at the waist by the same metal pole that destroyed Esposito's legs. The young man had tried to save the woman, grabbing her as they ran after the impact, Griffiths said. But they were both felled.

'He was so brave, so I said to him, 'You've got to live, to keep strong and focus on living!'' Griffiths said in a telephone interview Friday.

When the ambulance rushed him to Staten Island University Hospital, she was at his side. He was the first ferry accident victim to go into surgery.

When he awoke, he remembered the nurse with a British accent, who said her name was Kerry. But she was gone.

Esposito kept the green sweatshirt - hers - that she had taken off on the ferry to cover his torso and keep him warm.

The day after the accident, as he lay in a hospital bed with his legs amputated at the knee, Esposito's grandparents issued an appeal: The family wanted to find the nurse - who he remembered as having black hair and blue eyes.

Meanwhile, in her room at a hostel in Manhattan, Griffiths was writing a letter to the Esposito family. She called the hospital to ask how Esposito was doing and to get an address for the family.

On Friday morning, Paul Esposito's brother, Michael, a medical student in New York, picked up the British nurse and brought her to the bedside of the man she saved.

'We looked at one another and I cried. It was so overwhelming,' she said.

Esposito was heading home after leaving early from his job as a waiter at a restaurant in Manhattan when the accident happened.

Griffiths, who lives in Swansea, Wales, was visiting New York for the first time.

Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Re: Staten Island Ferry - just found out - prayers needed!!

thats sotry made me cry last night ont he news - it also made you kinda restore your faith in people....how sad for the poor guy - my thoughts and prayers are with your cousin's friend...is he the same person as the article/newstory??

Re: Staten Island Ferry - just found out - prayers needed!!

My fmil works in the hospital in SI and the stories she was tellin us last night were Breaking my heart..

Whomever is hurt and injured.. May the heal and go in peace!

Re: Staten Island Ferry - just found out - prayers needed!!

Yes, that is Paul, my cousin's friend.

ETA...here is an update from my aunt:

Beth (my cousin) and friends have been visiting him every day since the accident. His spirits are unbelievable! He also has a broken pelvis and I think a broken finger or two. Beth said he is incredible. She said he is joking around, etc. But that's Paul. He is doing as well as can be expected. He underwent another surgery on friday....for cleaning of wounds and skin grafting. Beth actually got to meet the nurse, Kerry, yesterday, as she has been visiting Paul too. God truly sent her to him, we truly believe that. The doctors said that he would have bleed to death within 5-10 minutes if she hadn't applied the tourniquet and gotten him to the ambulance. A truly inspiring story and a reason to believe in God sending us angels when we are in need. If anyone can recover and make a wonderful life for themselves after this..Paul is defintely the one. Thank you for asking about him.

Re: Staten Island Ferry - just found out - prayers needed!!

tha story gives me chills - what an amazing girl and guy - they both are angels to go theough it all! i hope he continues to do well!

Re: Staten Island Ferry - just found out - prayers needed!!

I am sitting here balling my eyes. I saw the grandparents on tv. God bless him. God bless her god bless Kerry. God bless all the vctims and their families.