Three people were rescued by helicopter after falling through ice in Queens on Friday.
It was full panic and chaos around Jamaica Bay.
FDNY officials say they received a report around 4:15 p.m. of multiple people in the water at 13-10 Norton Dr. in Far Rockaway.
Witnesses said 3 young men were walking across the frozen bay when suddenly they all fell in, fully submerged into the icy water.
“They’re all screaming help. They’re panicking,” witness Thomas Castro said.
Authorities said three 22-year-old men walked onto the ice covering Jamaica Bay and were rescued by an NYPD helicopter.
“I started screaming at them. They were like help help help help. I said listen calm down,” witness Aiden Gabourel said.
First responders with the FDNY arrived first, following the NYPD helicopter.
Witnesses said an FDNY member fell into the water as he was trying to reach the victims, but managed to pull himself out.
A first responder from the NYPD’s scuba team also fell into the water.
“The first guy that came out of the helicopter actually needed to rescue himself. Because as soon as he went in the water his line that was supposed to attach himself with the guy he was rescuing, the line kinda detached itself,” Castro said.
One by one the victims were plucked out from the grips of death.
Video released by the NYPD’s aviation unit showed the methodical rescue and the race against time.
The third victim had stopped moving after being in the water for nearly 40 minutes, officials said.
“There was one in particular because I was zooming in with my phone and he looked like he was struggling more than the other ones, and I could hear em talking. Listen just hold on, don’t make any movements or whatever. Yeah I just thought about hypothermia,” Gabourel said.
Witnesses said the men started on land by the houses and made it about the length of a football field on the ice.
Neighbors say it wasn’t the first time they had walked out on the ice.
They said they had done it several times over the past week apparently for fun.
“All the neighbors tell them to stop.They don’t listen. They don’t listen to nobody,” Castro said.
“Every day I drive by, I live around the corner, I see them doing it and I pull over and say look that’s not a good idea, you shouldn’t do that,” Gabourel said.
Two of the victims went to Mount Sinai South Nassau Hospital in Oceanside, and one went to St. John’s Episcopal Hospital in Far Rockaway. All three were conscious and alert.
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