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Shallow Fog Police recount saving Baldwin woman’s life
County Legislature honors ‘Top Cops’ for water rescue
The water was about 40 degrees when Nassau County Police Officers Kenneth Petterson and Zach Benigno jumped in to save a woman who had leapt into Baldwin Bay from the floating dock behind her home.
“You can’t just leave somebody floating out there,” Petterson said. “She was going to drown.”
Petterson, Benigno and Officer Richard Fosbeck were called to the home on Bay Front Drive on Feb. 8 at around 12:10 p.m. for a welfare check on an “emotionally disturbed person” when the unidentified 29-year-old woman threatened to jump into the water as they approached her. The woman’s mother pointed to her on the dock.
“She goes, ‘I’m not going with you,’” Fosbeck recounted, and she jumped into the bay. Fosbeck tossed her a flotation device, but she was in shock and unable to grab it. Petterson and Benigno quickly removed their gear, stripped down and entered the frigid water.
Realizing the water was too cold for the officers to swim, Fosbeck, thinking on his feet, pointed to a nearby personal watercraft, but the tide was too low, eliminating that as an option. Fosbeck ran next door, found a neighbor’s rowboat and cut it loose. He pushed it off a pier, he said, and into the sand. He dragged it to the shoreline, but realized the boat had to be plugged before the officers could push it into the water.
Meanwhile, the current was quickly pulling the woman farther from shore.
“We had to get the homeowner,” Fosbeck recalled. “I saw the guy. I said, ‘Where’s the plug?’ He goes, ‘I got it in the garage!’”
The neighbor threw them the plug and a kayak paddle that they could use to propel themselves. The three officers pursued the woman in the boat. At that point, she was 50 to 75 feet away.
“The only thing that was sticking out was her face,” Fosbeck said, adding that the woman’s mother said she did not know how to swim. “She paddled a couple of times and rotated on her back. Total shock. Her eyes were open — comatose.”
The officers partially pulled the woman onto the boat and headed to shore. They trudged through the low-tide mud and sank knee-deep in the sand. Fosbeck, Benigno and Petterson waited as they heard a nearby Marine Bureau boat approaching.
“She was in shock. She didn’t say one word,” Fosbeck said. “Her eyes were wide open, mouth was open, just breathing heavily.”
“She wasn’t coherent,” Petterson said.
Marine Bureau officers helped lift the woman onto the larger boat. The three officers climbed in, too, wrapped the woman in warming blankets and returned to the house where the mother was waiting.
The woman was rushed to Mount Sinai South Nassau Hospital in Oceanside, where she was treated for hypothermia and shock, police said. She fully recovered.
She was in the water for about five minutes, Fosbeck said, adding that “you don’t really know the time frame. It goes quick.”
There were “a lot of situations that had to be overcome,” Fosbeck said. “Everybody had a part.”
“Due to their vigilance, bravery and quick thinking, officers Fosbeck, Petterson and Benigno were able to save the life of a 29-year-old female victim,” Police Benevolent Association President James McDermott said at the Feb. 27 meeting of the Legislature. “The PBA is proud to name them legislative Top Cops for February 2020.”
Presiding Officer Richard Nicolello and the entire legislative body recognized the officers for their attentiveness and quick response, and issued them citations.
“I’m always impressed by the courage and dedication of our officers, and to be able to assess the situation within seconds and minutes definitely underscores the training that you get and underscores the people that you are,” Legislator Denise Ford, a Democrat from Long Beach, said. “I guess we can never comprehend why somebody wants to commit suicide, but by your quick actions you have given this woman an opportunity to perhaps seek help and hopefully change her life and ensure a better future.”
“I don’t think most people realize how quickly things can go wrong if someone jumps into freezing cold water,” Legislator Debra Mulé, a Democrat from Freeport, who represents Baldwin, said. “James McDermott mentioned about going into shock, and I think that that really adds another layer, another element of the danger, and how quickly all of the people who were involved with the rescue and the young woman herself, how quickly they could’ve died. Your bravery certainly should not go unrecognized.”
Aside from being officers, Ford added, “you’re also angels.”
“It was a group effort,” Benigno said, adding that it felt great to be honored. “I’m just happy everyone’s OK. That’s the most important part.”
