Woman jumps from GWB and survives; here's how

A Rutherford boat captain leaped into the Hudson River to save a woman who jumped from the George Washington Bridge.

Scott Koen at the wheel of the Lt. Michael Murphy. (File Photo) 

FORT LEE -- A Rutherford boat captain and an EMS crew from New Square, N.Y., helped save a woman Tuesday who survived a jump from the George Washington Bridge.

Members of New Square Hatzolah EMS had commissioned Scott Koen and his boat, the Lt. Michael P. Murphy, to search for the body of a community member who had jumped from the bridge a week earlier.

While divers searched the water south of the bridge, members of New Square Hatzolah saw someone or something fall off the other side of the bridge, said Heshy Gottdiner, a New Square resident volunteering with the group.

The group called 911, quickly summoning an NYPD helicopter. Koen, 58, moved his boat, named for a fallen Navy SEAL who was awarded the Medal of Honor, toward the bridge.

"As we got closer I could see somebody's head was just barely above the water," Koen said.

The woman, whom the Port Authority identified as a 26-year-old from Somerset County, was on her back, waving her arms to keep afloat, Koen said. She wasn't able to grab a rope thrown from the boat.

"At that point I just jumped in the water," Koen said.

The Rutherford resident wrapped a rope around the woman and the New Square Hatzolah members on board pulled her up, Koen said. He left her medical care to the EMTs on board, went to the cabin, cranked the heat, and steered the boat onto a rock at the base of the bridge to allow more emergency responders to reach her.

The woman was bleeding and pale, Gottdiner said.

"Her left foot was basically fractured," he said. "Part of the toe even looked like it was hanging off."

She told them her name and date of birth and said she left her belongings on the bridge, Gottdiner said. Joe Pentangelo, a spokesman for the Port Authority, said her car, a Saturn, was found on Fort Washington Avenue in Manhattan.

Eighteen people killed themselves by jumping off the George Washington Bridge in 2015. The fall to the Hudson River is more than 200 feet.

"I never heard of anybody surviving such a thing," Gottdiner said. "I was in shock, in tears and crying when I saw that she was alive."

Survivors are rare. In 2009, Adrian Rawn, 28, lived through the fall and swam to the New Jersey shore.

Crew members of the FDNY's Marine One unit told Koen they almost always recover bodies, not survivors.

Pentangelo said the woman was taking to St. Lukes Mt. Sinai in Manhattan, but did not have information on her condition.

For Koen, a second assistant chief with the Rutherford Fire Department, it's not the first time he's been in the right place at the right time. He's helped rescue people from the river before, including after the Miracle on the Hudson.

But this save was particularly emotional for him. Koen has had family members commit suicide.

"You just wish something would have happened at the last minute," he said. "I was so happy that at that last minute we were there."