2 year old Bridgette Sheriden’s father, David Anderson, didn’t hesitate when he saw his daughter slip off the gangplank of a ship docked at New York’s South Street Seaport. He dove into the ice cold water after her. But he might not have been able to hold on to the little girl and keep himself secured to the dock without the help of a mysterious man who followed him into the water.
According to Eric Stringer, who witnessed the daring rescue and videotaped it – a tape he shared with the New York Daily News – says that without help, it looked like Anderson and Bridgette might have drifted from the dock. When paramedics arrived the three were pulled from the water. The unidentified man didn’t wait to be checked out, or talk to Bridgette’s parents, he hurried away into a taxi.
Now Bridgette’s parents would like to thank their Good Samaritan in person. “I’d like to offer him my congratulations and my best wishes, and I’d like to talk to him privately to convey the same message,” the mother, who hasn’t given the press her name, told the Post.
Anderson, a former ski patrol rescue worker who now lives in California with his family, was well trained from his rescue days not to hesitate in an emergency. It’s a good thing – the currents at the port are strong, moments longer and the little girl might have been pulled too far away for him to catch. The rescue was already a close thing, “He went all the way under, and when he came up, he had her in his arms,” Stringer told the Daily News. “She was motionless, at first. It was a couple of seconds, and then she started crying.”
