'It’s going to hit us’: Passenger recounts tanker crash into New Orleans riverboat

Tamara Carrasco was eating lunch on the American Heritage riverboat, admiring the Mississippi River when she noticed the red and green tanker lowering its anchor.

That’s strange, she thought. Why would they anchor here?

Then she spotted its crew, scattering across the deck like ants.

“It’s not stopping,” her friend said. “It’s going to hit us.”

The pair fled from the first-floor dining room and its floor-to-ceiling windows and braced for impact in a nook on the opposite end of the boat. The collision knocked Carrasco to the floor.

Wrapped in a bed sheet for warmth, Carrasco fielded phone calls from loved ones on Friday afternoon as she waited to get evaluated by a doctor at University Medical Center New Orleans.

“This is the most memorable Friday the 13th I’ve ever had,” she said.

Carrasco was one of 32 passengers transported to the hospital on Friday after the 500-foot Asphalt American tanker lost control and crashed into the docked paddle-wheeler. There were no fatalities from the crash, officials said.

There was, however, a death on the boat earlier that morning, unrelated to the crash, according to Carrasco.

At 7:30 a.m., Carrasco said she woke up to an intercom announcement, asking for any doctors or nurses aboard the ship to go to a nearby room.

Carrasco recognized the room number. It’s where a pair of older women, whom she had befriended earlier in the cruise, were staying. She learned that one of the women had died and spent the rest of the morning comforting the surviving friend, before heading downstairs for lunch.

It was Carrasco’s first time in New Orleans and she had an excursion to the National World War II Museum later that day.

“I’m thinking, the worst is behind me today,” Carrasco said.

When Carrasco regained her footing after the collision, she ran to the stairwell and got a glimpse of the damage. The tanker had crashed into the dining room and water was gushing in like the Titanic, she said.

She was ushered off the boat by crew members and joined a crowd of shell-shocked survivors. It reminded her of the days after 9/11.

“We’re all just kind of wandering in a daze,” she said.

Carrasco was triaged for injuries and then told to wait in the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. That’s when her schoolteacher instincts kicked in.

In the corner, she spotted a waitress that she had gotten to know on the boat who was from Brazil, soaking wet and crying. She hugged her and told her to call her mother.

“Even though they tell teachers not to hug anymore, there’s occasions where you look at the kids and say they need a hug,” she said.

At 65, Carrasco said she was among the youngest guests on the boat. “I felt like I was a child on this boat. They were all elderly, except the crew.”

But she said the look in the elderly passengers’ eyes after the collision “reminded me of those kids that just needed a hug.”

“A lot of people I hugged today, just instinctively,” she said.

Carrasco escaped with her phone, wallet and the clothes on her back. (It was “Patriotic Day” on American Heritage, so she wore red, white and blue.)

Everything else in her cabin went down with the boat, including her wedding ring and engagement band, which she had traded out that morning for her great-grandmother’s rings.

Carrasco was in good spirits on Friday, all things considered. She has a history of back issues and felt numbness in her toes after the collision, so she opted to get evaluated at the hospital. Otherwise she was unscathed.

Carrasco, who is originally from Fort Lauderdale, wasn’t supposed to be on this trip.

Her friend had planned to go with her husband. But after her friend’s dog got sick, she offered both tickets to Carrasco. “I said, ‘Let your husband take care of the dog. Let’s go on this trip together’.”

Before heading to lunch on Friday, her friend booked another trip on board for a 15% discount.

“I told her you better cancel that one,” Carrasco said. “I’m never getting on a cruise ship again.”