By Debbie Bulloch
New York City can be a vast, faceless metropolis. People on the streets always seem to be in a hurry to get from Point A to Point B. They always walk fast, and stare straight ahead, and avoid contact with others. But on a bright, sunny Easter Weekend afternoon, the Big Apple became a very friendly place for a little, two year old girl.
The little girl, Bridget Sheridan, and her parents were walking up a gang plank to board a ship docked at New York’s South Street Seaport. It was a beautiful spring weekend and Bridgette’s parents had decided to take their little girl to the circus.
All of the sudden, something went terribly wrong. Somehow, Bridget slipped through a guardrail and fell some 15 - 20 feet (4.6 – 6.1 meters) into the river below. New York’s East River is not a good place to go for a swim. The currents are vicious, the waters are murky, and on the first weekend in April, the river is a bone-chilling 40 F (4.45 C) degrees.
The “Rule of 50” states that the average adult has a 50/50 change of surviving a 50-yard swim or 50 minutes in 50 F (10 C) water.
At that point, the odds for Bridget’s surviving her Easter Weekend fall into the icy waters were bleak.
Her father, David Anderson, driven by paternal instinct did what almost every father would do; he dove into the river to rescue his daughter. But even a father, determined to save his child’s life, is no match for the East River’s strong currents and cold waters. That is when a Good Samaritan jumped into action, assuring that Bridgette and her father would live to see Easter Sunday.
An unidentified French tourist - who onlookers say rushed toward the scene without hesitation—leapt after Bridgette’s father into the cold waters. The Frenchman helped to keep the father maintain a hold over Bridgette. By that time, other people formed what the New York Daily News described as a "'human chain of good Samaritan rescuers." The Frenchman took Bridgette from her father and lifted her to the others who had remained on the ship, who then passed her to her mother.
The mystery Frenchman has not been seen since Saturday afternoon. After jumping into the water fully clothed, not even pausing to take his phone from his pocket, the Frenchman simply climbed out of the river, got in a cab, and left.
"I'd like to offer him my congratulations and best wishes,” Bridget’s mother told the newspapers, “and I want to talk to him personally."
After her dramatic rescue, little Bridget was tended at the scene by paramedics. She could be heard crying – a very good sign. Bridget may not be alive today if Good Samaritans had not quickly jumped to her aid. Pictures taken at the scene show that the girl was already pale — almost blue — from her exposure to the cold water.
On an Easter Weekend, in a large, impersonal city, Good Samaritans jumped into action to rescue a little girl in big trouble.
One special Good Samaritan from France risked his own life to save another man’s child. Then, like a true superhero, he disappeared into the crowd not stopping to claim the crowd’s adulation that was rightfully his or the parents’ grateful “thank you.”
On that sunshiny day, the world truly became a smaller place and the brotherhood and sisterhood of humankind became a little stronger.
To the mystery hero: Merci beaucoup!
(Photos from the New York Daily News. Copyright 2010 by Eric Stringer. All rights reserved.)
