A 19-year-old girl left the hospital a day after a quick-thinking Brooklynite
pulled her out of the Coney Island water on May 13. Photo by Todd Maisel
Good Samaritan pulls drowning
woman from Coney Island
DE BLASIO: You can walk on the beach, but:
NO NO NO NO
COURIER LIFE, MAY 22-28, 2020 3
The city has authority over whether the
beaches would open or close after Gov. Andrew
Cuomo said that state beaches could
reopen on Memorial Day Weekend, but
could open to 50 percent of their normal
capacity, and only with the consent of the
local government — which kicked the decision
to Mayor Bill de Blasio.
“I’ve said it before and I’m going to say
it again, we are not opening our beaches
on Memorial Day,” de Blasio said in a press
conference on May 17. “We are not opening
our beaches in the near term. It is not safe.
It is not the right thing to do in the epicenter
of this crisis.”
One local resident argued that hizzoner’s
heavy-handed closure was unnecessarily
restrictive, and proposed allowing
Coney Island residents to use the beach
free from non-locals — which would prevent
people from traveling on public transit
to get to the shoreline.
“The city should be solution-oriented. If
the mayor doesn’t want people to travel to
the beach, allow residents of 11224 or 11235
with an ID to enter the beach to swim,”
said Jeff Paleno. “Many people live here
because of the beach.”
That idea comes after Nassau County on
Long Island decided to open their beaches,
but only to those with a valid local ID — effectively
barring New Yorkers.
BY TODD MAISEL
A good samaritan pulled a
young woman out of the frigid Coney
Island waters after spotting
her drowning at about 4 pm on
May 13.
Mike Perez was on the beach by
Ocean Parkway when he saw the
19-year-old Bronx girl wade into
the water, he said.
“At fi rst she took off her pants
and was walking on the beach
without pants and just wearing a
jacket, but then she went into the
water,” said Perez, an artist and
bartender who is unemployed because
of the coronavirus outbreak.
“I wasn’t paying attention to her
for a moment and she was gone.”
Perez, who swims at the beach
and was wearing a wetsuit, decided
he had no time to lose.
“I called 911 and told them
where I was, but then I said to myself,
‘I’m wasting time, I should go
in there,’ so I told the operator I
have to go and hung up and went
in,” said the Brooklyn native.
Perez made his way along the
rocky jetty when he spotted the
woman’s foot in the surf, grabbed
her, and started dragging her to
shore. School Safety offi cer Anthony
Baisden, on his third day assigned
to the beach, rushed out to
help Perez bring the unconscious
woman to dry land.
The woman was brought back
to life by fi rst responders and fi refi
ghters who immediately began
CPR on her after she was pulled
from the water. “She had a heartbeat,”
exclaimed one top cop.
The woman was loaded onto a
police gator and driven to a waiting
ambulance that rushed her to
Coney Island Hospital, where she
was released the following day,
according to Councilman Mark
Treyger.
Perez said he was just doing
whatever he could to help.
“I don’t know, there really
wasn’t heroics, I was just doing my
part,” said Perez, a Brooklyn College
alumnus.
SADNESS
Photo by Todd Maisel
SWIMMING
PARTYING SPORTING
GATHERING
of opening city beaches