A NY Waterway ferry crew aboard the Empire State rescued a man from the Hudson River on Aug. 27, which is the third rescue in four years that SIU members Capt. David Dort and Deckhand Gregorio Pages have performed while on their ferry route. This was the first water rescue for Deckhand Andrew Galarza.
The crew was just leaving the Brookfield Place/ Battery Park City Terminal, headed to the Hoboken NJ Transit Terminal at 7:30 a.m., when they saw a man in the water near Pier 25.
“We were just about to back out when I saw something in the water. The deckhands deployed as we moved up and they got him out,” Dort said. “This is why we do our drills.”
The crew then brought the man back to the Brookfield Place/Battery Park City Terminal and turned him over to the New York Police Department and medical personnel.
In Nov. 2017, Dort and his crew rescued a man from the Hudson after he had jumped off the seawall just north of the Brookfield Place/Battery Park City Ferry Terminal. In July 2016, they rescued a man from the water near West 39th Street.
When asked about the multiple rescues in 2017, Captain Dort replied, “For us, this is all in a day’s work.”
Since 1986, SIU-crewed NY Waterway ferries have provided dependable transportation for commuters and other passengers in New York and New Jersey. They also have conducted emergency evacuations, bringing hundreds of thousands of New Jersey residents home safely after 9/11, the 2003 blackout and other disasters. These ferries and crews also have saved more than 300 people from various accidents, including 143 people rescued from Flight 1549 in the Miracle on the Hudson, the most successful rescue in aviation history.
During non-pandemic times, the ferries carry upwards of 32,000 or more passengers daily and maintain an on-time performance rate greater than 99 percent. The boats serve 20-plus routes between New Jersey and Manhattan.
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