The man was already hypothermic when he reached him.
A FNDY medic jumped into the frigid waters of the Hudson River to rescue a suicidal man on Saturday.
Paramedic Niall O’Shaughnessy and his partner Mingze Wu were driving up the West Side Highway in the afternoon when they saw a group of police officers near the river’s edge and pulled over, the New York Daily News reported.
A patient from Manhattan hospital had tried to kill himself by jumping into the river and cops were having a hard time getting him out of the water with a “life ring,” reports said.
O’Shaughnessy didn't hesitate to jump in to get the man out.
“I swam behind him and locked my arms around him to keep him secure,” O’Shaughnessy told the paper. “My partner and firefighters from Engine 10 began pulling us up.”
The medic described the man as “lethargic and definitely hypothermic.”
O’Shaughnessy said he felt the cold of the water very quickly.
“Within about 30 seconds, I could definitely feel it in my arms and legs,” O’Shaughnessy said. “They weren’t really working. I couldn’t barely get my hand around the ladder they had sent down.”
NYPD and FDNY harbor boats later pulled both men out of the water.
The man he saved was taken to Bellevue Hospital.
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