A Long Island woman is being hailed a hero after risking her own life to save a stranger who had fallen into a frozen creek.
Kayla Masotto, 28, of Mastic Beach, sprang into action to save the man who appeared to have fallen from his watercraft and was unable to get out of the partially frozen Poospatuck Creek on Thursday afternoon.
Masotto was sitting in her living room watching television when she noticed the man on the ice as he began to get into trouble.
She ran out into her backyard to see if he needed help, but he declined insisting he was alright.
However, moments later, Masotto saw the man’s jet-ski start to smoke and eventually sink, sending her into action.
‘I was just thinking, I need to get to him as fast as I can. The water is freezing,’ Masotto said.
She ran to her basement, grabbed a paddle board and rushed outside where she cautiously inched her way across the thin ice and over to the troubled man.
‘I ended up running to my basement, grabbing my paddleboard, and ran out and saw how far I could run on the ice,’ Masotto told News12.
Kayla Masotto, 28, of Mastic Beach, risked her life to save a man who appeared to have fallen from his watercraft and was unable to get out of the partially frozen Poospatuck Creek
The Mastic-Beach native ran to her basement, grabbed a paddle board and rushed outside where she cautiously inched her way across the thin ice and over to the troubled man
‘I just had to do what I could to try to help this man. There was no time to think honestly. It was just kind of adrenaline.’
The 28-year-old heroine pulled the freezing man onto the front of her paddle board when she got to him.
‘He had let me know that his fingers weren’t working. His legs were numb, his hands were numb,’ said Masotto.
After securing him on the foot of her board, a group of men stationed at a marina neighboring the frozen creek, who had witnessed the distressing incident, threw a rope to Masotto.
The pair were pulled to shore on a rope just as Mastic Fire and EMS arrived.
‘This gentleman was already experiencing the early effects of hypothermia and thanks to Kayla’s actions, will be okay after being evaluated at a local hospital,’ a statement from the Mastic Fire Department reads.
Mastic Fire Department Chief Steven Januszkiewicz credits Masotto with saving the man’s life in a situation where mere seconds can make the difference between life and death.
Masotto can be seen catiously inching her way across the frozen creek in pursuit of the freezing man
The 28-year-old can be seen pulling the troubled man onto the front of her paddle board as she successfully rescues the unidentified man
‘She just sprung into action and did what she had to do and thank God, because in this kind of situation, time matters,’ Januszkiewicz said.
‘The quicker you can get them out of the water, the better chance of survival they’ll have.’
Masotto, still in disbelief about the incident, says she just wanted to make sure that man could return home to his family.
‘That’s someone’s son. That’s someone’s brother. That’s maybe someone’s dad and I would hope that if it was my family member out there, that someone would do the same,’ she said.
The man was in the early stages of hypothermia when he got out of the water, Mastic EMS said.
He was taken to the hospital and is expected to recover.
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