Fast action by two brothers-in-law on an East Marion beach last night saved the lives of a Westbury man and his two young children.
Kevin Quarty and Sal Agosta, with Agosta’s 8-year-old-son John, were at the dock on Gull Pond last night, where Agosta, a Shipyard Lane resident, ties up his boat. At about 7:45 they heard an air horn blast and screams coming from the water. At first they didn’t see the people in distress. But John ran down the beach and saw the capsized boat and people near it, then came racing back to his dad and uncle.
“He said he couldn’t tell if they were in the water, but they looked real low,” Agosta said. “He saw a red light. Apparently the guy lit a flare.”
Agosta and Quarty ran down the beach for a look and saw another boat pass the vessel. “We thought everything must be OK,” he said. “But then we heard them screaming.” The men and boy ran back to Agosta’s boat, jumped in and went out to the boat.
“The boat was upside down and they were in the water clinging to a floating cooler,” Agosta said.
“I pulled up really close, maybe five or six feet away,” he recalled. They tossed ropes out to the man and children in the water, pulled them in and hauled them aboard.
They’d been in the water for about 15 minutes, Agosta said. He said the man, who told police he was returning from a fishing trip with his two children, seemed like he was in shock.
“The little girl was shaking. She didn’t want to get out of my boat,” Agosta said. “They had to carry her off.”
Agosta said he took the father and children to the town ramp at Klipp Park in Greenport, where waiting EMS from East Marion Fire Department took them to ELIH for evaluation, according to police.
Police identified the distressed boater Gerlin Polanco, 36, of Westbury, who was boating with his 5-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son.
“Everything happened so quick,” Agosta said. “your adrenaline just starts pumping.”
Agosta said his son “stepped right up like a champ” to help rescue the boaters. “Then he gave them towels and fresh water to drink. He was a trooper. Maybe he’ll be a cop,” Agosta mused.
Agosta, a Porsche auto technician in Southampton was back to work today. “I tried to get the day off. I told them I had to be on TV because Kelly is looking for a new co-host.”
His son went to school this morning, despite being so pumped up last night he couldn’t fall asleep. “He didn’t finally close his eyes till about 12:30,” Agosta said.
Quarty, a contractor, was also back at work today.
Their mother-in-law, Linda Goldsmith of East Marion, says Agosta is very modest.
“At first he wasn’t even telling my daughter about it when they got home,” Goldsmith said.
She said this wasn’t the first time Agosta saved people from possibly drowning.
“He saved a 2-year-old from a swimming pool and he saved two kids who fell off a dock in East Hampton,” she said.
“I guess you could say I’ve been in the right place at the right time a couple of times,” Agosta said.
