Doomed Boater’s 911 Calls Save Other Passengers
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WHITE PLAINS — A man who died after a boat overturned in a Hudson River marsh helped save his fellow passengers by making 911 calls from his cell phone while they were trapped beneath the hull.
Steven Vasta, 25, of Mahopac was unresponsive by the time rescuers found the upside-down boat early yesterday and was later pronounced dead. But the four other passengers were saved, the Putnam County sheriff, Donald Smith, said.
“Without those calls from Mr. Vasta, that presence of mind, perhaps those passengers stay stranded there, pinned under that boat in the mud, until someone sees them in the daylight hours,” Captain William McNamara, of the sheriff’s office, said. “If that was the case, who knows what might have happened?”
Yesterday afternoon, the boat lay upside-down in the weeds of the marsh near Highland Falls, about 45 miles north of New York City.
John Downey III, who was piloting the 26-foot Four Winns Liberator, told police he tried to turn it when he realized it was running aground late Monday. But the craft overturned and trapped the passengers beneath it.
Frances Streck, who lives on the shore near the scene, was unsure what had happened. “I just heard a lot of screaming, ‘Help! help! help!'” she said.
In his two calls, Vasta told the 911 center that the passengers were trapped under a capsized boat, Mr. McNamara said. The connection was lost both times, but dispatchers were able to determine an approximate location.
Boats, helicopters, and cars were sent from surrounding counties. After about an hour, officers on a Putnam County sheriff’s boat spotted the wreck in the marsh’s waist-high water.
Rescuers used air bags to lift the hull. Besides Mr. Downey, 25, the other passengers were identified as Mr. Downey’s fiancee, Vanessa Santos, 23; Marco Almeida, 26; and Sean Morris, 27; all of Mahopac.
Mr. Morris was in serious condition this morning at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla. Mr. Almeida andMs. Santos were in good condition there, while Mr. Downey had been treated and released from another hospital.
The boaters had gone north to Newburgh to dine at a dockside restaurant and were headed back south at the time of the accident, Mr. Smith said. He blamed the accident on the darkness and the shallowness of the river at the spot, and said preliminary findings indicated alcohol was not a factor.
