Three heroic cops rescued a man who plunged from the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge into the East River Thursday morning.
The officers, from the NYPD’s Harbor Launch George unit, got a radio call around 11:20 a.m. that a man in his 30s was on the extension bridge and about to jump. Officers Mark Kliche, Brian Kearney and Pete Martinez arrived within minutes and saw the man standing on the outside of the bridge by the fence.
The Emergency Service Unit responded and began to talk to the man, but to no avail. The man took the plunge — about 55 feet — into the water.
The harbor officers quickly pulled up next to the man.
“He looked up at us and said, ‘help me,’” Kliche said. “That’s when we threw him a life ring.”
The cops then pulled the man to safety.
He complained of pain to his left rib and was spitting up some blood, but was otherwise “totally conscious the whole time,” Kliche said.
The officers brought him to the Launch Repair Shop nearby, and he was later transported to Harlem Hospital in stable condition for evaluation.