After a beautiful, sunny day on Saturday, June 6, at around 8 p.m., the skies turned dark with clouds waiting to drop heavy rain. Strong wind gusts picked up, powerful enough to topple trees in parts of the city. An ideal situation for being home after a long day in the sun, but not to be caught on a boat. Unfortunately for one man, it was a perfect storm of circumstances that led to him clinging to his overturned, sinking boat in Jamaica Bay, but a series of serendipitous circumstances that followed led to him making it home after the ordeal.
As many do to end a beautiful day in Rockaway, several locals found themselves at The Wharf, enjoying dinner and drinks, when an unexpected scene unfolded amid the bayside views. “We were on the deck when the storm started blowing in. In typical Rockaway fashion, we thought the storm was going to blow over and all of a sudden, the wind picked up and everything went flying, beers, food,” Tara Endall said. “We ran inside, and the staff closed the garage doors and just as they were closing them, I looked out the window and see a man on one little boat with a big silver steering wheel and noticed it looked like he was struggling. I said, ‘Oh my God, look at that guy!’ It didn’t look good.”
Chrissy Banker, who was at The Wharf for a friend’s birthday, and who owns a boat, knew for certain, the scene was not good. “We were on the deck when the storm came in and started blowing everything and I said, ‘Yeah, you definitely wouldn’t want to be a on a boat today’ and my friend said, ‘There’s a guy on a boat right now.’ I looked up and saw he was sitting at the center console and booking it and he was hitting every wave, which were just whitecaps in the wind, and every time he hit them, the boat went up at a 90-degree angle and slammed down,” Banker said.
As they watched the boater struggle among the rough seas, matters got worse when two NYC ferry boats going in opposite directions, passed by. “I saw the ferry leaving Rockaway and another coming in and the man was past The Wharf, at about Beach 122nd Steet when the ferries started passing each other. At that point, I think he thought, let me get behind the ferry leaving and ride behind the wake of that, but when he went to cross that wake, a big wave went over the front of his boat and his boat went up in the air and down, engine first. I saw the boat come back up about three-quarters of the way and he started taking on more and more water and I said ‘His boat is sinking! He’s sinking!’” Banker said. With that, Banker’s friends, a retired firefighter, and a retired cop, ran out and hopped the fence behind The Wharf to the rocks to get closer to the struggling boater.
Meanwhile, Endall’s husband Michael, quickly got on the phone. “I thought he was calling 911, but he knows people in the Harbor Unit, so he was calling them to alert them of what was happening and just as my husband picked up the phone, the boat flips over,” Endall said. “As he was on the phone with the Harbor Unit, they let him know that they were already on their way as NYC Ferry had called in a mayday.”
Endall and Banker said the ferry heading toward Manhattan had turned back to respond to the struggling man and positioned itself to keep the man from floating out deeper into the bay. “The ferry captain had eyes on him and called the mayday, “Banker said. “I could see the crew at the front of the ferry throw a floatation device to the man and they were telling him to grab on to it, but he was hanging on to the top of the boat. Maybe he was scared and didn’t want to let go of that because he kept hanging on to the boat.”
Meanwhile, alerted to the emergency, FDNY’s Engine 268 and Ladder 137 just blocks away, had responded to the call and parked near the bay wall before a few firefighters jumped over the wall on to the rocks and launched a rescue surfboard with a firefighter holding on to rope from a reel in case he needed to be pulled in as the stormy water raged. Within seconds, they reached the man. “The guy went out and they put him on the surfboard and paddled to the rocks while multiple cops and firefighters came out on the rocks and grabbed him,” Banker said.
“When they pulled him out of the water, they were asking if anyone else was in the water. We told them only one. When the guy came ashore, he was really out of breath, so he couldn’t really talk but I did hear him say, ‘I think I saw God,’ and someone screamed, ‘God was with you buddy!’” Endall explained,
Once safely on land, the man was placed in an ambulance to be treated. “Everyone started clapping for the FDNY, EMS and Harbor guys and everyone who was part of the rescue. It was such a happy ending for something that could’ve been really bad,” Endall said.
“Thank God he was OK, and enough people witnessed it. If that had to happen, it happened in a good spot,” Banker said. “He was very lucky. Not lucky that it happened, but lucky it happened here.”
The timing didn’t hurt either. “Even if it had happened maybe five to ten minutes later, the ferry would have passed by already, it would be darker because the sun was setting, and we might not have seen him. It was like a perfect storm of events that happened simultaneously, and I believe it’s truly why this guy was saved. Had nobody been outside, had the ferry not been leaving, I don’t know how long that man would’ve been out there. His little boat sunk completely under the water after they got him,” Endall said. “Thank you to the FDNY and Harbor and the Ferry and anyone outside who saw this happen and played a part in helping him.”
Endall hopes the close call can serve as a lesson for all boaters. “Wear a life jacket. Even if you think you can swim, you never go out on a boat without having life jackets. That man, we didn’t even get his name. His boat is at the bottom of the bay. I’m so glad he was OK,” Endall said.
For everyone else, after the ordeal, it was bottoms up and cheers to a job well done. “Everybody went back into The Wharf and continued drinking. A typical Rockaway Saturday,” Endall said. “Save a life and keep on drinking.”
