By John C. Ensslin
Herald News
PATERSON, N.J. — Details emerged Wednesday of how a Paterson man was saved from drowning early Tuesday in what Paterson fire officials described as one of the more dramatic water rescues in recent memory.
It happened after one attempt after another had failed: Firefighters were able to float a rescue boat to the man, Gabriel Polance, who had been clinging partially submerged to a tree as the Passaic River raged around him.
And fire officials said it might not have happened if not for the foresight of a rescue captain and his crew who cut holes in a fence on Monday at a parking lot near a senior citizen apartment building at 52 Godwin Ave.
The incident began shortly before 3 a.m. Tuesday when a Haledon police officer reported seeing a man in a camouflage uniform fall from the Temple Street Bridge, said Battalion Chief Brian McDermott, who was the incident commander. Fire officials believe Polance is a member of a military unit, but weren’t sure which service.
A few moments later, Fire Rescue Capt. Howard Anderson reported seeing what he thought was a person clinging to the bridge get swept away.
An initial search at the scene found no one, so fire crews headed downstream to Godwin Avenue, where the day before Rescue Capt. Scott Parkin had noticed some kids playing by the river.
Acting on a hunch that it might turn into a trouble spot, Parkin ordered his crew to cut two 8-foot-wide holes in the 6-foot-tall fence that was topped with razor wire.
McDermott said that move saved rescuers about 15 minutes and probably made the difference between life and death for the Polance.
‘Help! I’m over here’
As it happened, Parkin and his crew were on duty Tuesday morning when the report of a man falling into the river was aired. They responded by driving through the hole that they cut in the fence the day before — and they quickly spotted the man clinging to a tree. Parkin said he could hear the man shouting “Help! Help! I’m over here.”
Anderson arrived and began talking to the man, urging him to hang on and remain calm.
Tied to a rope with his crew hanging on, Parkin made two attempts to reach the man. But the currents were too strong and he was forced to turn back.
A Passaic County sheriff’s squad arrived at the scene and used their rope gun to try to shoot a lifeline to the man. But the branches and foliage of many downed trees prevented it from reaching him, McDermott said.
Another rescue squad led by Capt. Frank Liscio arrived. McDermott said Parkin and Liscio came up with several options. They tried floating a buoy ring and a life vest attached to a harness to the man.
But both were snagged by tree branches.
Fire officials called for a state police helicopter, but then realized power lines would prevent an air rescue.
Finally, they launched a 14-foot inflatable yellow rescue boat toward the man. When it became tangled, crews tied a rope to Liscio and he went into the water far enough to untangle the boat.
The man was able to grab it and climbed into the boat.
Liscio than helped push the boat toward a human chain of firefighters that stretched far enough so that firefighter A.J. Woods could latch onto the boat’s nylon cord with a 14-foot fiberglass pike pole.
They pulled the man back to the parking lot, where paramedics checked on him, then took him to St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center.
McDermott said it was one of the best rescues he has seen in Paterson and one with very little margin for error.
Parkin said he was proud of all of his colleagues and the sheriff’s deputies who pulled together on the rescue.
“At no point did any of us look at one another and say we couldn’t do that,” he said. “There was an absolute can-do attitude. We were going to get him.”
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