Three teens and five cops rescue man who fell into the Peconic River Saturday night in downtown Riverhead

A Medford man who fell into the Peconic River Saturday night was rescued by police, thanks to quick action by three local teenagers who happened upon him struggling in the river’s frigid waters.

The three friends were walking along the riverfront on their way to McDonald’s in Riverside when they heard muffled cries coming from the water near McDermott Avenue.

“At first we thought we were hearing things. Then we thought it was coming from the woods over there,” Christopher Lull, 19, of Riverhead, said gesturing toward the shoreline across from the boardwalk. “But the we realized it was much closer, like right in the water.”

It was just after 7 o’clock. Night had fallen and the river was pitch black. Lull and his two friends, Isabella (“Izzy”) DiPierro, 16, of Wading River and Tyrek Highsmith, 18, of Riverhead, stopped and backtracked to try to find the person in distress. Using flashlights on their phones they spotted the man, who was clinging to one of the dock’s pilings.

He seemed very weak, they recalled today as they recounted what happened next.

“He couldn’t talk,” DiPierro said. “He could barely get our attention.”

“We gotta pull this dude out the water,” Highsmith told his friends. But they couldn’t quite reach him. Highsmith attempted to lower his bike into the water for the man to grab, hoping they’d be able to pull him out that way.

“But the guy’s hands were so frozen he couldn’t grip the bike,” Lull said.

Izzy called 911.

Within a couple of minutes, cops swarmed all around them, the teens said.

“They came from every direction,” Highsmith said. “They got here mad fast.”

“It was mad cool how they formed a human ladder,” Highsmith said. One officer got down on the dock on his belly, two other officers held his legs and other cops held onto them, the teens said. They lowered the first cop off the deck to pull the man out of the water.

“It was like something out of a movie,” Highsmith said.

It took five cops — Anthony Montalbano, Chris Burns, Mike Lojko, Dan Walther and Louis Lugini — to pull the man to safety, Riverhead Police Lt. David Lessard said.

“They did the right thing by calling the police,” Lessard said. If the teens hadn’t discovered the man when they did and acted to rescue him, he almost certainly would have perished, he said.

The lieutenant said the river’s temperature was probably in the high 30s or low 40s at the time of the incident.

“After about 10 minutes in water that cold, you lose mobility,” Lessard said. “Your body is pushing all the blood to your heart, away from your extremities. You lose your fine motor skills first.”

The man’s fingers and toes had turned black from the cold, the teens said.

“They saved his life,” Lessard said. The man, identified by police as Mike Santiago, had turned 31 on Christmas Day, he said.

Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corps transported Santiago to Peconic Bay Medical Center, where he was treated for hypothermia.

“I guess it’s a good thing we were hungry,” Highsmith said, smiling broadly. “It feels good to know we helped save someone’s life.”

Denise Civiletti contributed reporting.

Top photo caption: Isabella (“Izzy”) DiPierro, Christopher Lull and Tyrek Highsmith near the spot where they found a man in the Peconic River Saturday night. (Photo: Denise Civiletti)