Boat Into the Bridge. Chaos into Command. And We Were on It Before Anyone.
How buffs tracked what the news missed—and how FDNY turned chaos into command
I was in the car when it broke, heading back from the Harrisburg Fire Convention in Pennsylvania.
Scanner chatter. Sudden tone. Something about a boat and the Brooklyn Bridge.
I turned to my dad and said,
“This is big.”
But I didn’t know how big. Not yet.
There was no article. No tweet. Just static and signals.
Then: a 7-5.
Then more.
I was already posting to FireWire and Citizen before the news even showed up.
So was Schuyler. So was TheMajestirium1.
This wasn’t a news story yet.
It was ours.
The Early Clues
At first, it sounded like a mechanical issue. Maybe a ferry. Common enough down by Pier 11.
But something about the urgency told a different story.
Then the unit list started piling on:
E004, E006, E007, E010
L010, T001, T015F
BC04, BC02, RS01, Q018
RA01, DC01, C15
This wasn’t just a water rescue.
It was bridge-level, river-level, marine-level command.
The city knew it. Most people didn’t. Yet.
What Happened on That Ship
The Cuauhtémoc isn’t a ferry. It’s a tall ship—sails, rigging, masts, and narrow wooden decks.
When it hit the Brooklyn Bridge, the masts snapped, rigging collapsed, and multiple people were injured by debris or impact. Some were thrown off balance. A few went overboard.
Dozens of passengers—some hurt, many in shock—were stranded on a damaged deck under broken spars and tangled lines.
With rigging down and gangways blocked, EMS couldn’t reach them directly.
You couldn’t just walk on with a medic bag.
It took improvisation—fast.
What FDNY Did Instead
Units got there fast:
Engine 004. Ladder 010. Rescue 1. Squad 18. Truck 015F.
Within minutes, someone called it:
“We don’t have enough boards. We need water rescue gear now.”
So they got to work:
Pulled longboards and rescue stretchers from every truck
Dug out spare backboards meant for ice rescue or high-angle work
Grabbed unused spineboards from EMS buses
Walked boards across ladder bridges and ferried them by hand
Transferred patients off the ship by boat
One firefighter told Schuyler:
“We had to dig under gear on the truck to find the boards we needed. Everything got used. Everything.”
They laid the boards out and built a makeshift trauma bay on the deck.
Stabilized, loaded, carried, ferried—one patient at a time.
Improvised Command
There was no script. Just instinct, reps, and radio.
The ship was wedged under a live bridge span—no EMS access
The masts blocked the helideck
Marine 1 and others couldn’t dock side transfers only
FDNY built a floating extraction zone, piece by piece
What the News Missed
The coverage? Two-minute clips.
“Ship crashes, two dead, 19 injured.”
Maybe a shaky video of the mast breaking.
But here’s what went down:
Specialized ladders called in for elevated access
Mass Casualty Pods rolled before the second alarm
Buffs like Schuyler were already tracking Box 0492 and relos faster than CAD
Three marine units shuttled patients to South Street Seaport and the Battery.
EMS was split across piers.
Rescue divers and truck companies were repositioned for vertical access.
Command built itself in real time.
Watch What Really Happened
Here are the best available videos showing different parts of the incident:
▶️ New Video of Mexican Navy Ship Crashing into Brooklyn Bridge (ABC7NY)
193K views – Best raw footage of impact and response
▶️ How a Mexican Navy Ship Crashed Into the Brooklyn Bridge (New York Times)
Short, high-quality breakdown of the collision and aftermath
▶️ Watch Moment Mexican Navy Training Ship Hits Bridge (CNN)
240K views – Cleanest angle of initial impact
▶️ NTSB Press Conference on the Collision (CBS News)
20-minute official update for those tracking response structure
It Was Everywhere
Command stretched across the map:
Brooklyn Bridge — primary incident
Manhattan Bridge (Box 0208) — possible debris or obstruction
Clarkson & South (Box 0234) and Whitehall (Box 0130) — marine control and egress
Relocations from 4 boroughs:
E280, E034, E291
T114, L113, Q270, and more
It wasn’t just a boat crash.
It was a live stress test of the city’s incident management system.
We Were Watching
This one hit different.
Not just because of the tragedy.
But because we heard it before it had a name.
We tracked the calls.
Matched the boxes.
Watched the command unfold—live, incomplete, and deadly serious.
We saw them turn:
Every truck into a trauma station
Every ladder into a gangway
Every backboard into a lifeline
No mention of that on the 6 o’clock news.
No talk of the coordination.
No nod to the guys who made it happen.
But we were there.
And we won’t forget.
Because we saw it.
And we made sure it didn’t disappear.
Special thanks to my sources and the tools I used:
@FDNY @CitizenApp @FireWire_NYC
Tools used:
FireWire, Citizen App, YouTube Live, Box Lookup, Scanner Broadcastify