Ferry Crash Survivor Goes Home

Six weeks after losing both legs in the Staten Island ferry crash, Paul Esposito remains on five different painkillers. On Thursday, he received the best medicine yet: his release from the hospital.

“Friends and family are the best painkiller of all,” Esposito said as he left Staten Island University Hospital. Doctors there saved his life after the horrific Oct. 15 crash, which killed 10 people and injured more than 60.

Flanked by his father and grandfather and facing a crowd of media, Esposito said the one thing he most looked forward to was “sleeping late.” In the hospital, he was often awake by 6 a.m. to get his bandages changed.

Esposito, who lost both legs above the knee, said he remembers just about every detail of the accident -- “especially Kerry.” Nurse Kerry Griffiths, a tourist from Wales, treated Esposito aboard the ferry immediately after the crash.

The two have remained in touch via e-mail, and the 24-year-old Staten Island man said he hopes to meet her again.

The team of doctors and health-care workers who saved Esposito’s life said they had never seen such a quick recovery from such devastating injuries.

“I’ve never seen anyone like Paul,” said Todd Cooperman, a hospital rehabilitation expert. “He never complains, he always has a smile on his face.”

Esposito’s release left just one victim of the crash still hospitalized: a woman who also lost both her legs and who remains in a medically induced coma.

Investigators continue to probe the crash, and have said it probably was caused by human error. A criminal investigation also is continuing.

For his first weeks outside the hospital, Esposito will live at a Staten Island health care center. He helped an architect design plans to transform his parents’ garage into a ground-floor wing where he’ll live.

The former Manhattan waiter is expected to receive computer-operated prosthetic legs sometime this winter.