David M. Cirasuolo helped to save Jacki R. Metz and four others from drowning, Rome, New York, June 28, 2001. Ms. Metz, 28, and four others, including two children, were aboard a 17-foot boat on Lake Delta when the boat’s motor failed. Despite the party’s efforts to restart the motor and to paddle to safety, the boat was drawn by the current toward the spillway of a dam. Water flowed over the spillway, which had a 60-foot drop to the river below. In his friend’s 18-foot boat about a quarter-mile away, Cirasuolo, 34, and the friend saw the distressed boat and immediately responded to the scene. As they approached, Ms. Metz and the others of her party entered the lake, and, from a point near the dam, Cirasuolo and his friend pulled the children from the water into their boat. Cirasuolo and his friend took their boat to two of the adults who were at the distressed vessel, which by then was lodged against the spillway. As Cirasuolo and his friend secured one of the adults, their boat struck the distressed one, but did not dislodge it, and itself became immobilized, temporarily, against the spillway. Freeing their boat, Cirasuolo and his friend positioned it for the rescue of the other adult, and again it became immobilized against the spillway. Another boat responded about then, and the third adult from Ms. Metz’s party, who had remained in the water, swam a line from Cirasuolo’s and his friend’s boat to it. That boat towed the latter from the spillway to open water, after which Cirasuolo and his friend took it, all victims aboard, to safety.
75450 – 8602
75450-8602