Retired NYPD officer saves despondent woman who walked into the East River carrying a baby
By Naveen Dhaliwal
Click here for updates on this story
NEW YORK (WCBS) — A retired NYPD officer is being called a hero after he pulled a mother and her 5-month-old baby from the East River.
The rescue happened on Sunday at a park in Queens, and it showed instinct and training coming together at the right moment.
What was supposed to be a fun day at the Hermon A. MacNeil Park waterfront turned terrifying when retired NYPD Officer Paul Pinsdorf heard the screams, and then saw a woman walking into the river with a baby.
“She’s saying incoherent things, so I couldn’t really make out,” said Pinsdorf, who was volunteering for a local Halloween event but then found himself running toward the water’s edge. “She was crying, holding it, going deeper and deeper in the water.”
Pinsdorf said his police training immediately kicked in, and, without a second thought, he jumped in.
“I had to forcefully pull her in. She did not want to come back,” Pinsdorf said. “Another 30 seconds and the baby would have been under the water.”
His fellow volunteers called 911 as rescue crews rushed in to help pull the mother to shore.
“The woman was stressing over something,” said Brock Weiner, who is also retired NYPD. “She was fighting him, but she wouldn’t let go the baby.”
Police are still unclear why the woman entered the water, but if it wasn’t for Pinsdorf’s quick actions the outcome might have been very different.
“If Paul didn’t get here when he got there, I don’t know what would have been the outcome,” said retired NYPD Officer Kevin O’Donnell.
Pinsdorf may have left the force, but on this day his sense of duty was as strong as ever.
“It was meant to be, you know, and I would have had a happy ending. I go another minute, we would have had a different story to tell,” Pinsdorf said.
Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.