{"id":134944,"date":"2026-03-10T23:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T23:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/134944\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T23:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T23:57:08","slug":"pittsburgh-city-officials-honor-ems-workers-who-worked-to-rescue-woman-from-icy-monongahela-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/134944\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh city officials honor EMS workers who worked to rescue woman from icy Monongahela River"},"content":{"rendered":"

PITTSBURGH \u2014 Nearly 30 EMS workers were honored Tuesday by the City of Pittsburgh for their work during a massive rescue effort after a car crashed off the Parkway East and crashed into the icy Monongahela River<\/a> on Jan. 29.<\/p>\n

PREVIOUS COVERAGE >>> Woman, 31, dies after vehicle plunges into icy Mon River from the Parkway East<\/a><\/p>\n

Gregory Tersine was the first diver in the water. He wasn\u2019t working the river that day, so crews had to bring him his dive gear.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mission is finding this vehicle. I said, \u2018I have to find this vehicle as soon as I can, I\u2019ve got to extricate her,\u2019\u201d Tersine said.<\/p>\n

He said it was difficult to see underwater, so he felt around and found the car within a minute. It was badly damaged.<\/p>\n

\u201cLuckily, I was able to kind of pry that door open enough and was able to remove the victim from the driver\u2019s side there to get her to the surface as soon as possible,\u201d Tersine said.<\/p>\n

There was a moment of panic as Tersine worked to get to the surface.<\/p>\n

\u201cDue to the ice, when I came up, I came up on the bottom of the ice shelf, so I was now underneath the ice whenever I came up,\u201d Tersine recalled. \u201cIt was a little bit of a panic for a second just trying to figure out which direction I needed to go, because when you\u2019re under the ice, you really have no concept of which direction you need to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

The driver of the car, Jacinta Stevens, was rushed to the hospital but sadly didn\u2019t survive.<\/p>\n

PREVIOUS COVERAGE >>> Pittsburgh fashion community remembers woman who died after crashing into Mon River<\/a><\/p>\n

City leaders still wanted to recognize all of those efforts made to save her.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou all today, who we are honoring, risked your lives to save another Pittsburgher, to save somebody that was in frigid conditions, and none of you hesitated, you didn\u2019t think about it because this is the job you wanted to do,\u201d Mayor Corey O\u2019Connor said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the kind of stuff that we train for,\u201d Tersine said. \u201cUnfortunately, the results weren\u2019t what we hoped for, but it\u2019s nice that the city acknowledged all of the effort and everyone that put in their time and energy to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stevens\u2019 car is still in the Monongahela River.<\/p>\n

Sources tell Channel 11\u2019s Andrew Havranek the river is currently moving too fast to bring it out, but crews are working on a plan to bring it out of the water. <\/p>\n

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