By Jillian Jorgensen
Staten Island Advance (New York)
Copyright 2007 Advance Publications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — One minute, Jason Speiser was walking along the FDR Boardwalk with his wife; the next, he was guiding a drowning stranger back to shore through 75 feet of choppy surf.
“He was just saying, ‘I’m out of breath, I have no air,’” Speiser said.
Speiser, 33, a firefighter attached to Engine Co. 154 in Travis, was taking his first-ever stroll along the boardwalk at about 8 p.m. Monday when fire officials say Peter Aponte jumped into the water from the Ocean Breeze Fishing Pier, reportedly to retrieve his companion’s hat.
Alerted by a passerby who ran screaming toward Parks Department employees, Speiser looked out at the ocean and saw the 22-year-old struggling to keep his head above water. He dashed in.
“Nobody else was doing it,” the hero explained.
Aponte was panicky when Speiser reached him, so the firefighter grabbed his arm, tried to calm him and coached him back to shore.
“We’d been trained for cold-water rescue. I wish I’d had the equipment there, it would have been easier,” he said. “Swimming back, I was glad to see the Fire Department on the beach.”
Cold-water rescues usually involve buoys, fins, flotation devices and a wet suit, Speiser said, but all he had was his own strength.
“The suit floats. It’s a big difference,” he added.
Back on shore, paramedics surrounded Aponte and gave a winded Speiser some oxygen while he caught his breath.
The firefighter, who lives in Castleton Corners but is preparing to move to the South Beach neighborhood where he put his water-rescue skills to the test, said he probably would have swum after the victim even if he had not been a firefighter.
“I used to be a good swimmer. I didn’t know how well I was going to do, I just wanted to make sure I got out to him.”
“I like the water, I like being on boats, I like scuba diving, but this is totally different,” he added.
Speiser said he was overwhelmed with all the attention he was receiving for the rescue.
“If one of us does something outside of the job, it’s a big deal, but we do it every day at work,” he said.