standing almost in waist-deep water right at the brink of the falls, the hair on the back of my neck went up. moriarty immediately calls the fire department and the helicopter rescue unit. he also calls the power company upriver and asks them to use their dam to lower the water level. within minutes, niagara firefighter gary carella arrives on the scene. where the victim was standing is almost impossible to fathom. it is one of the most dangerous positions that a person can put themselves in. if i was a betting man, i would bet 99.9 times out of 100, that no one could stand that close to the falls. carella, moriarty, and the rest of the rescue team meet to come up with a plan. they know there isn t much time. darkness is setting in, and it s only getting colder. our training and experience tells us we only have slight minutes to get him out of that position, or he may go into shock or even cardiac arrest due to hypothermia. the decision is made to lower
his arms and legs around the man and braces himself. pat yelled for them to pull, and i ll tell you what. it was the quickest ever i thought i would to go up an embankment, but it must have been the adrenaline on top because we slid out of there in a matter of seconds. and minutes later, sergeant moriarty is pulled to safety too. it s a chaotic scene, but now both on solid ground, the two men who just risked their lives to save another search for each other in the crowd. we shook hands, and we it was just an understanding that only people that do this can understand the feeling of gratitude and pride in the job we had just done. it was like, i can t believe we just did that. every time i see pat, i get that little smile and that feeling inside, and i think back to that day and i know he ll be a friend for life. coming up, parents out of control at a kids football game.
captain kevin caffery hovers above, trying to get a rescue basket close enough for the man to grasp. we made four or five attempts to get him with the rescue basket. we got pretty close to him. the problem is with the treacherous air current, it was almost impossible to control the aircraft. at some point he said, i m running out of power. we re not going to be able to do this. another failed attempt. the chopper returns to land so the team can come up with plan c. and in the water, carella and moriarty know time is not on their side. at this time now, it s starting to get dark. gary and i were getting colder in the water because we d been in there for a while. i know my hands were getting numb. i was getting concerned, if we did get close enough to the victim, am i going to be able to grab onto him and hold him? our victim, who s soaking wet at this time, is telling us he can t last much longer. what we originally thought he d only last for a few minutes, now he s been in th
carella and moriarty into the water. these two men, who d met only in passing before, know they ll need to trust each other. we shook hands and looked each other in the eye and i think we understood, i m there to save your life and you re there to save mine. as they re lowered into the water, they both have two ropes attached to their harnesses. one ties them to a small shrub on the shore, and the other is controlled by about 20 rescuers. they will use all of their strength to keep those men from getting swept over the falls. the water going at such a rate and then dropping at such a distance creates this tremendous thunder. you actually feel like you re in a small earthquake, and it s just an unsettling feeling. looking down from the shoreline when we first hit the water, i pulled on gary s arm and pointed down. directly downriver from us the brink of the falls along the shoreline, the water had undercut the ice. i said to gary, if we lose our footing, we ll end up under the
of men, not nature, that s the biggest miracle of all. an unbelievable rescue mission to save one man who has crept dangerously close to the edge of the falls. the call comes in on march 19th, 2003, 5:08 p.m. sergeant pat moriarty is on duty. he s a 19-year veteran of the niagara falls state park police. our radio man yelled down the hall and said, we just got a call from the canadians. there s a man on the ice at terrapin point. not a safe place to be. terrapin point is a piece of land that sits as close to the falls as you can get. the drop from that point, at terrapin point, is over 180 feet straight down. if you go over in that particular spot, you re not going to survive. when moriarty arrives on the scene, it s even worse than he expected. the man is not on the icy formation on land. he s waist deep in frigid water. when i saw the victim