Teenagers Rescued in Sheepshead Bay

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The New York Sun

In a dramatic air-sea rescue, helicopter-borne police officers dove into the drink and saved two teenage sailors whose drifting boat had capsized at Sheepshead Bay.


A police aviation unit responding to a 911 call at 10 a.m. yesterday flew to the water south of Manhattan Beach. Sergeant Edward Schulze, captain of the helicopter’s five-man crew, spotted a “shimmer in the light,” which turned out to be an overturned sailboat with two males, a 19-year-old and a 16-year-old, clinging to the hull, police said. The boat was two miles offshore, near Breezy Point.


Police Officers Chuck Schnitzer and Shane Moran, the team’s Scuba divers, leaped from the helicopter and dove into the water, grabbed the sailors, and provided them with floatation devices.


The crew signaled a private motorboat that was in the area to move closer and assist with the operation. The Scuba divers helped the two teenagers into the private boat, where they were given blankets. The teenagers had been in the water for 15 minutes, and an EMT-trained Scuba diver determined that they were suffering from exposure.


The teenagers were not experienced sailors, according to police. They had put the boat into the water with their father, and when their father stepped away the boat drifted from the dock. The teenagers put up the sail in an effort to control the boat, and then the wind blew the boat two miles out to sea, where it eventually capsized.


The private boat took the teenagers and the officers to land at Sheepshead Bay, where they were met by the Emergency Medical Service and the Emergency Service Unit and taken to Coney Island Hospital. The teenagers were treated for exposure.


In addition to the sergeant and the Scuba divers, the rescuers included two police officers, John Maier and William Schub.


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