..."I think I got about 50 people ashore"...
Policeman Henry Sesher, one of the first to go to the rescue, gave a vivid description of the accident:
"I saw scores of men and women, many of them holding children, plunge into the water," he said. "I jumped into a rowboat and pulled out among the drowning people. I think I got about fifty ashore. A fireboat and tugs hurried to the scene and picked up more than a hundred people. We grabbed those nearest us first. One time I had four women in the boat with me. Others I aided by dragging them from the water to the docks."