STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Chloe Sowers is a pretty, 37-year-old strawberry blonde with a job as a computer programmer in Manhattan.

She also has a social life: And on Thursday, Dec. 8, she arrived at the Whitehall Ferry Terminal, slightly tipsy after a party, hoping to catch the midnight boat and get some shut-eye in her St. George apartment before returning to work the next day.

According to papers filed this week in Manhattan federal court, that never happened.

She was forced by a police officer against her will to accept help she insists she did not need, launching her into a nightmarish odyssey that had her strapped into a straight jacket, shipped off to a hospital and shot up with medication, a lawsuit alleges.

Groggy and bruised, Ms. Sowers escaped the next morning from New York Downtown Hospital, according to the suit against the City of New York, the Staten Island police officer who arrested her and New York Downtown Hospital.

“It seems she was illegally seized and taken into detention and that was a violation of her civil rights,” said Ms. Sowers’ Manhattan attorney Gregory Antollino, who did not specify any amount of damages in the suit filed in the United States Southern District Court. “She was treated miserably from the moment she told the police officer she didn’t want to go to the hospital, to the time she was untied and left the hospital on her own accord.”

There is no law on the books in the state of New York that it is illegal to be slightly intoxicated in public, he said.

“There is an absence of law,” he said. “There is a law you can’t be disorderly; but she was just sitting there, she wasn’t being disorderly.”

With all the seats taken, Ms. Sowers sat down on the floor near the ferry entrance, and was “hydrating with coconut water,” according to the allegations. “She was intoxicated, but functioning and in control of her faculties.”

That’s when Officer Kevin McKeon, “a stocky male Caucasian in his forties,” as described in the court papers, asked if she was OK, and whether she wanted to go to the hospital.

Ms. Sowers, at that point, “did not understand why in heaven’s name, McKeon thought she would need to go to the hospital,” the allegations continue. The officer then barred her from getting on the ferry, and summoned an ambulance. The 5-foot-10-inch Ms. Sowers was strapped to a gurney and taken to New York Downtown Hospital on William Street.

“Hey, it looks like we got a Houdini here,” said a medical worker, the court papers recount. Ms. Sowers was folded into a “mini straight jacket” and given an injection that knocked her out, the allegations continue.

She awoke the next morning with bruises around her ankles. When a nurse released her to use the restroom, she sneaked out: “The hospital did not try and retrieve her or even call, but it did send her a bill,” according to the papers, “...which she has no intention of paying.”

Ms. Sowers was groggy for three days from the drug.

The city, for its part, defends the actions of the police officer:

“It appears from the complaint that the police acted responsibly to assist an inebriated woman,” said Kate Ahlers, a spokeswoman for the New York City Law Department. “Allegations in a complaint are just that — allegations, and nothing more.” The hospital did not return a request for comment. Nor did the New York City Police Department.

Drunken ferry passengers are hardly a novelty, commuters at the St. George Ferry Terminal yesterday agreed.

And the consensus seemed to be that if their fellow riders may have had a few drinks, but are not in any danger of harming themselves or others — and keep to themselves — there is no need for police to intervene.

“You see lots of drunk people, especially vagrants, in the later hours,” said Dina Nugent of Arden Heights. “It’s OK to be tipsy. If you’re drunk and you’re bothering somebody, then the police should do something.”

Isidro Gonzalez of New Brighton said he understands even drunk people need to travel home, but he warned they should exercise caution.

“It shouldn’t be illegal to be a little drunk,” he said. “But you should sober up before you hit the streets. This is New York, anything can happen.”