A pair of Queens police officers rescued two men over the weekend whose Jet Ski ran out of gas and was caught in a strong current, police said Wednesday.
The officers, Matthew Carson and Christopher Carlino, found the men when they responded to a 911 call for help just before 8:50 p.m. in the Rockaways on Saturday. The men, 21 and 28 years old, were hanging on for dear life: one holding onto the Jet Ski and the other floating in the water, wearing a life jacket that was too loose to keep him afloat, police said.
“His hands were going up in the air as he was going under the water,” Carlino said in a statement.
The officers, who are both strong swimmers, quickly decided to go in after them.
“I came to the conclusion that this one guy wasn’t going to make it to the shore,” Carson said in a statement. “It was my gut instinct to go into the water and make sure this guy wasn’t going to drown.”
They waded into the water, helped by another officer who was holding a flashlight from the beach. Carson first grabbed the man who was floating alone and pulled him to Carlino, who brought him to the shore. Carson then went back out for the man holding on to the shipwrecked Jet Ski and took him to safety.
The two stranded men were both exhausted but uninjured, police said.
