Man rescued after driving into waters off Stony Brook
Greg Sund, a semi-retiree who lives in Stony Brook, likes to eat his lunch down by the water at the Stony Brook Yacht Club near his home.
But his midday meal Tuesday ended abruptly when a car careened into the water in front of him, and Sund leapt into action to help the trapped driver.
"Holy mackerel," Sund said he told a friend who was sitting in a car next to him." Sund, 64, said he jumped out of his car and started shedding his clothing "because I knew I had to rescue somebody."
Greg Sund, who rescued a driver from a Ford Explorer after the driver crashed through a fence and into the water off the Stony Brook Yacht Club around 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday. Credit: James Carbone
Sund said the car, which police described as a Ford Explorer, was still on the water's surface when he dove in.
"The guy was just floating in the water in the car," Sund said in a phone interview. "The car was floating in the water up against another dock. He had his seat belt off already," but Sund said the man was trapped by the water pressure.
Sund said the man was "only wet up to his knees." He checked the back seat to see if anyone else was in the vehicle, but found it was empty.
"I go down to lift his feet up, push his whole body toward the guy's that pulling him out on the passenger side," said Sund, who was in the water while another good Samaritan, Eon Suhanee, was helping from the dock. "Within 10 seconds, we had him out."
It was a good thing, too, because Sund said the unidentified driver "really couldn't move." And seconds after the man was retrieved and brought out on the dock, the car quickly sank. "I came out of the car and one second later, the whole car went under."
Suhanee, 28, of Oakdale, said he and his wife were looking to park near the yacht club when his wife saw the car crash into the water. Suhanee said he ran to the dock and worked to free the man from the passenger side, while Sund was in the water on the driver' side.
"I'm just happy he's okay," Suhanee said of the driver. "It was the kind of incident that seemed like a perfect storm. But everything turned out all right."
Ann Cea, who was watching from her home across the street and recorded some of what transpired, recalled: "I heard a loud noise. I was at my computer." She said she went to her front porch to investigate. "I saw something was happening in the marina. I saw a fence was down, a guy was taking off his clothes. He dove in. There was a car across the way from where I am. I zoomed in with my iPhone and took video."
She said she saw "this young man, Greg, went in the window on the driver's side, reach in to get an elderly man out of the car … As soon as he was out, the car goes right down."
The rescued man was driven home by a friend, Suhanee said.
Suffolk County Police said in a brief statement that Sixth Precinct officers responded to the scene at about 12:30 p.m., saying: "An adult male drove a Ford Explorer through a fence and off a dock. The man was not injured." They did not identify the man.
Cea said an ambulance came, "they checked him out," after which she said the driver "walks off."
Sund, a father of four adult children, grandfather of two, and an owner of rental properties, said the EMTs checked him out as well and "said I was fine." He said he only "cut my finger a little bit."
As for the rescue, Sund said, "I just went into action. That was it." He added, "I never saved no one before."
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