By NANCY HILER
The Fortunato brothers -- Thomas, 16, James, 10, and Jake, 8 -- had fallen through the ice behind the Rosati house at 2459 Bellmore Ave., less than a block from their destination, the Dunkin' Donuts on Merrick Road.
"I wasn't thinking," Rosati said. "My mom was yelling, 'They're gonna die,' so I just thought, I've got to get these kids out. I told them to take my hand." Following the rescue, the modest teenager, a senior at Kennedy High School who plays third base for the school baseball team, said simply, "I'm glad they're all right."
Rosati said he knew that if he had hesitated, the outcome would not have been good. By the time Nassau County police and the Bellmore Fire Department arrived at the house, the three brothers were safely covered in blankets, said Thomas¹s mother, Mary Ann. Fire department EMS responders evaluated the boys' condition, determined they did not need medical care and released them to their father¹s care, the Nassau County Police Department Marine Bureau reported.
It all began when Thomas Fortunato, a Nassau BOCES student who lives with his father a few blocks away on Kopf Road, and his two younger brothers, who were visiting for the weekend, set out around 10:30 a.m. on Sunday. They walked the canal for several blocks north toward Dunkin' Donuts. "The ice is thick over here," Thomas Fortunato said later, pointing to the frozen water behind his house. "We walk on it over here all the time."
Not realizing that the ice was much thinner farther from his house, Fortunato fell into waist-deep water a few blocks away. He scrambled out onto a deck and tried to boost his still-dry brothers up onto it, but the property owner told the boys to get off her land. The three brothers thought they had no choice but to go back out onto the icy canal. "We moved another four or five houses away from that old lady's house," Thomas said, "but then all three of us started falling through the ice."
At that point, Mary Ann Rosati heard her Dalmatian barking, alerting her that the boys were in the canal near her house. The older boy asked if he could climb onto her deck and she told him he could, but she knew the boys were in trouble. She started yelling for help and called 911 on a cellphone, shouting into the receiver.
Hearing his mother's cries, Thomas Rosati, barefoot and dressed in a pair of shorts, ran to the boys¹ aid. "I've never seen anything like it," Mary Ann said. "It was amazing, incredible. The youngest boy was crying. They all went under a few times. I really thought they were going to die.
"I thought I was having a heart attack," Mary Ann continued, saying she feared the boys would drown or that her son would be pulled in with them. "My heart was pounding, jumping out of my chest."
Her son pulled them out one by one "like it was nothing," she said. "He grabbed each of them out with one hand. He was laying down, holding himself onto the deck with the other hand." She said the hand Thomas extended was injured before the rescue, and that she had asked him how serious it was only the night before, as they considered having it examined by a doctor.
"I can't imagine how he pulled them out," the boys¹ father, Tony Fortunato, said of Rosati. "Especially this guy," Fortunato added, pointing to his eldest son, who weighs about 190 pounds. "They're heavy, plus they were soaking wet." Fortunato knows how heavy they are because he sometimes wrestles with them, he explained. At the time of the incident, he thought his sons were playing in the back, as they often do, and he didn¹t know they had decided to walk farther away along the canal.
The boys¹ mother, Kim Fortunato, picked up the two younger ones shortly after the incident. "I didn't know everybody plays on the canal," Kim said, adding that she was eager to get her children back to their home in Bethpage.
"I am extremely grateful," said Tony, choking up, after the two younger boys left with their mother. He said he hugged Rosati when he picked up his sons after the rescue, and was overwhelmed by the young man's actions.
"He's always made me proud, but what he did today is beyond heroic," Mary Ann Rosati said of Thomas. "He just ran. He never thought of himself. He never made a fuss. He just said, 'I got to get these kids out.' There are no words to say how I feel about him. Most people just worry about themselves. He doesn't. Knowing that, I feel as a mom I've done my job. That is the biggest gift a son can give a mom."
Mary Ann said that her son is considering a career in law enforcement, and is the type who always helps others. She also said that an older son from a previous marriage, Roger Deihm, who was shot and killed three years ago, had rescued two dogs from the icy canal behind her home. Remembering that, she said, she felt that Thomas in some way did this in honor of his lost brother.
Another Rosati brother, Dennis, commented, "God tests us."
"You never know what can happen," the Rosatis' next-door neighbor, Janice Alfonsi, said, adding that she wasn't surprised that Thomas acted the way he did. "It's a good thing he was there," she said.
Many might say it was lucky indeed. After all, Fortunato means "lucky person" in Italian, and no one was luckier last Sunday than the Fortunato brothers.
Comments about this story? NHiler@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 234.
