...OVERSEAS HEROES... HERO WADES INTO FLOOD WATER TO SAVE DROWNING CABBIE


As Hurricane Sandy’s flood waters rose higher and higher around a stranded New York taxi cab, its driver appeared help- less


against the


14-foot storm surge that grew to his chin. But offering a final moment of mercy, wit- nesses watched as 25-year-old Jon Can- delaria selflessly left his Upper East Side apartment to reach the man trapped in the churning water and wind. “He looked like he was praying, preparing to die. He looked like he knew it was his time to go,” Mr Candelaria told DNA Info of the moment he reached the yellow SUV’s win- dow. Standing at 6-feet-5, the East River’s water


had swept up to Mr Candelaria’s chest as he waded out to the vehicle he had spotted from his seventh floor apartment - a public housing complex on East 93rd street and First Avenue. From that window, at the peak of the storm, Mr Candelaria’s moth- er had let out a scream when catching sight of the cab as it abruptly lifted and spun 180- degrees around in the tide. “That”s when my mom flipped out,” Mr Can- delaria recalled. Slipping on a jacket over a pair of shorts, Mr Candelaria began his dash outside and into the water while his mother dialed 911. “911 was overloaded. If we had waited for help, he would have


Jon Candelaria and the rescued cabbie


died,” he said. Dipping into the water he estimated feeling like 40-degrees, Mr Candelaria said it did- n’t take long for the water to rise from his ankles to his chest. Wading one step at a time it was then a flash of his two-year-old daughter entered his head - his greatest risk of leaving behind.


“I would do it for any- body,” he later said of his decision. “It does- n’t matter who you are; you’re a human being.” Reaching the door he pulled at its handle but found it stuck, unable to budge against the water. Enlisting the driver’s help, whom he said showed only brief panic, he signalled for them to both try on the count of three. Counting off, he said something unusual happened. “As soon as I hit three, it seemed like every- thing became calm,” Mr Candelaria said, describing the wind briefly pausing for the first time. Pulling it open, Mr Candeleria was seen by other


residents


grabbing the driver from his vehicle and tossing him over his shoulder to begin their trek back. “Even if he had man- aged to get out of the car, I don’t think he would have made it because he was so short,” Mr Candeleria said of the man found to be 5-foot-1 in height. Inside his building, witnesses to the scene poured out to help and catch sight of


the


hero. “I said ‘Oh my God, you are a hero,’ Rita Callahan, a resident in the building recalled to DNA Info. “That water was churning.


It could


have swept you away.” “I’m not a hero,” Mr Candelaria


said. “What was I supposed


to do? Sit at home and watch a man drown and take pictures to post on Facebook? … That’s not me.” So eager to return to his family, when police arrived the driver was gone, with neither Mr Candelaria nor witness- ing residents catching the man’s name. A photo of the two men was, however, snapped by one of the building’s residents, showing the pair both smiling. The driver stands just up to Mr Candelaria”s shoul- ders. “I remember him when he was just a baby in the carriage,” Rose Bergin a resident of Mr Candelaria’s building told DNA Info. “Now he’s a hero who grew up right here in public housing.”


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PHTM JANUARY 2013


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