INQUISITR.COM / News & Politics

Cruise Ship Smacks Into Lock Wall In St. Lawrence River — 30 People Injured, Two Still In Hospital

By Shelley Hazen
Published on: 05:57 PST, Jun 19, 2015

Cruise ship passengers on the Saint Laurent got quite a jolt Thursday night. As the craft navigated the Eisenhower Lock on the St. Lawrence River, it smacked right into a concrete knee wall.

Three crew and 27 French cruisers were injured and taken to a local hospital with minor injuries. However, by Friday, two of them had moved to a facility in Vermont for “a higher level of care,” the Watertown Daily Times reported.

The Saint Laurent was headed to Toronto from Montreal carrying 274 people. “People got thrown around,” sustaining injuries to their head, neck, chest, and eye areas, local emergency services director, Michael J. LeCuyer told the Daily Courier-Observer.

The 50-foot wide and 300-foot long cruise ship was scheduled to go through the locks around 9 p.m. and struck the wall shortly after. Its bow started taking on water about 9:15 p.m., and the St. Lawrence Seaway had to be shut down, the lock drained, and the craft stranded in shallow water.

And it’ll have to stay there until investigators can figure out how bad the damage is. An investigation into the cause of the crash is ongoing, the Associated Press added. So far, crews have assessed that damage is “significant.”

While the cruise ship is repaired, its French passengers are going back through immigration and then to Montreal; shortly after the incident, only the injured were removed from the vessel, while the rest cooled their heels in the lobby.

Saint Laurent is owned by FleetPro, which used to be International Shipping Partners. It’s registered in the Bahamas.

[Photo Courtesy Twitter]

[Photo Courtesy Twitter]

Share this article: Cruise Ship Smacks Into Lock Wall In St. Lawrence River — 30 People Injured, Two Still In Hospital
More from Inquisitr