Rescuer Lauded For Saving Drunk Woman Who Drowned Husband's Porsche

One quiet Sunday evening last month, Katie Osiecki and her boyfriend John Glennon were returning from the movies to their home on Lazy Point in Amagansett when they heard a cry for help.

"We weren't quite sure where it was coming from," Osiecki said. "It's kind of windy up there, so we couldn't really pinpoint where."

They drove around the loop on the peninsula in Glennon's truck trying to target the cries. Osiecki  called 911 at 10:07 p.m. to alert police that something was awry. Another couple was also on the search when they all came upon the launching ramp area, where they could distinctly hear a woman yelling from the water, an estimated 75 yards out.

"When we finally figured out she was out in the water, my boyfriend spotted me with a flashlight, I jumped in and pulled her out," Osiecki recalled.

The April 21 incident didn't unfold quite as simply as Osiecki makes it. Modest about her heroic actions, the 21-year-old ocean lifeguard rescued a woman whom police said deliberately drove her husband's Porsche into Napeague Harbor while inebriated.

The woman was struggling, having been carried by the current to just outside the channel on the northside of Lazy Point. Glennon said he didn't want Osiecki to jump in at first because he wasn't sure what unfolded before the woman ended up in the water. "The vehicle was nowhere around her. She wasn't even close to where they found the car," she said.

As she entered the dark waters, estimated to be in the high-40s, she could see the woman clearly, thanks to the flashlight Glennon point at the water. "It wasn't like I was completely in the dark," she said. "It was the bay, it wasn't like there were waves." Glennon made a second call to 911, she said.

The woman was cooperative, Osiecki said, explaining that she put her in a cross-chest hold, which put the woman on her back and her feet in a position pointing upward. About half-way back to shore, Osiecki was able to walk her the rest of the way in.

However, she said, "Between the hypothermia and the alcohol, she wasn't making much sense."

"She was as blue as your sweatshirt," said Glennon, a volunteer with the Amagansett Fire Department.

The woman, identified by police as Joann L. Hamilton, a 57-year-old Lazy Point resident, was charged with misdemeanor DWI. The fire department, including A-EMT Tom Field, treated her and transported her to Southampton Hospital. Police noted in their report that strong currents prevented them from located the car until the morning light, with the help of the Suffolk County police aviation unit.

But, the fact that Hamilton may have drowned had it not been for Osiecki seemingly went unnoticed, according to John Ryan Sr., a town lifeguard training coordinator.

The Volunteer Ocean Rescue Lifeguard squad is planning on recognizing Osiecki   one of its newest members, at its meeting on Monday, though she will miss the meeting as she is flying to Singapore as part of her master's degree program.

Last summer was her first as a lifeguard. "Most kids start at 16, but she didn't," Ryan said.

His son John Ryan Jr., the chief of the town lifeguards, said Osiecki stood out immediately in training last year. "It was not a surprise at all when I found out she had jumped in 40-something degree water. That's a tough thing to do," he said, adding Osiecki was training with the lifeguards this spring, including on the day of the incident.

Lifeguarding was always something the Sag Harbor native always wanted to do, but she finally decided to do it after graduating from Stony Brook University last spring. She worked at South Edison Beach — better known as Nick's Beach — in Montauk under the tutelage of John McGeehan. "It was the best decision I ever made," she said. "I had a blast."

She plans to return this summer, while she continues to work toward her master's in sustainable design.

The elder Ryan said Osiecki and Glennon, 32, handled the situation exactly right. Glennon, he said, is not lifeguard — (though a pretty strong rugby player we hear). "If you don't think you can get out there, don't go," Ryan said. "I'm pretty damn sure that woman is alive today because of what she did," he said.