By Ben Fractenberg and Tom Liddy
DNAinfo Staff
MANHATTAN — Three people were plucked from the Hudson River after a tugboat capsized in the waters off Hell's Kitchen Thursday afternoon, authorities said.
"Emergency personnel responding to a capsized tug boat near the West Side Highway & W 41st St," tweeted the city's Office of Emergency Management.
Motorists were told to "expect heavy traffic delays" in the area.
Police sources said that the boat began having problems near Pier 90, at 50th Street before becoming submerged near Pier 81, near 41st Street, shortly afterward.
Witness Abe Laforteza, 38, who works on a yacht at Pier 81, said that he heard yelling at around 4:45 p.m.
When he went to take a look, he saw the boat turned over in the water that was rapidly sinking.
“[Another] boat tried to put a line on it to keep it from sinking," Laforteza said. “It turned over and was sinking.”
Three people were rescued from the water and taken to Roosevelt Hospital with unknown injuries.
To reach the vessel, fire and police personnel commandeered a NY Waterway boat, according to ferry Captain Thomas Jansen.
Jansen, 23, said that an FDNY captain flagged him down, said "that it was an emergency and there was a boat going down and they needed my assistance.
"I said, 'OK not a problem'," he told DNAinfo.
Originally, the rescuers — about 30 members of the fire department and 6 members of the NYPD — planned to perform a SCUBA rescue from his boat, but they decided the bow was too high, Jansen, of Farmingdale, NJ, said.
He then dropped some of the rescuers off at the FDNY's 343 fire boat on Pier 76, about three blocks away, and then went over to the scene with the others in case any other help was needed.
Hudson River ferry service was delayed because of the incident, NY Waterway tweeted.
