Area Firefighters, Police Officer Rescue Man From Tower
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Verona-Cedar Grove Times
A 29-year-old North Caldwell man who tried to hang himself
from a water tower at the Hilltop Reservation was saved Monday night after he
spent nearly two hours dangling dozens of feet above the ground.
Police from North Caldwell and Verona rushed to the scene
around 5 p.m. after reportedly receiving a call from a hiker that a man had
climbed to the top of the tower. The tower and its adjacent twin sit atop a
mountain ridge and are both prominently visible from Cedar Grove, Verona and
the Caldwells. Both towers are surrounded by high fencing topped with barbed
wire.
North Caldwell Police Chief Joseph Clark said that when he
arrived, the man was laying down on a lip running along the bottom of the water
tank. He and Verona police officers were telling the man that help was on the
way when the man leapt from his perch, Clark said. Police officers then saw the
noose the man had tied around his neck, the other end of which was tied to the
tower.
As the man descended from the tower, Clark said, the rope
snapped, sending him in a free-fall until he was caught up in the metal
crossbeams of one of the tower's legs.
"He went end-over-end. His body did a complete
flip," Clark said.
Getting caught in the metal latticework "probably
saved his life," Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontoura said at the scene
as the rescue was in progress.
As the man dangled from the tower, emergency services personnel
from a number of communities rushed to the scene. Helicopters from the State
Police and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency hovered overhead.
A slew of emergency vehicles entered the area from the
reservation's main entrance on Fairview Avenue in Cedar Grove, negotiating a
narrow roadway that snakes up the hill towards the towers. The vehicles had to
proceed carefully as they made their way up the ice-covered hillside.
The rescue presented other challenges. A Verona Fire
Department ladder truck that arrived at the scene was unable to reach the man
because the ladder was too short. A truck from Roseland with a longer ladder
was quickly called in to assist.
Emergency workers operating from the ladder's platform then
had to secure the man - who had been caught by the ankle and was suspended
upside down - to the tower to prevent him from falling. The man also initially
resisted attempts to save him, witnesses at the scene said.
After two hours, Cedar Grove firefighters Joseph Sente and
Corey Keepers - who is also a member of the Cedar Grove Ambulance and Rescue
Squad - and Verona Police Sgt. Robert Acceturo pulled the man into the ladder
platform. As the platform approached him, the man could also be seen extending
his arm towards it. He also moaned as the emergency workers pulled him to
safety.
Cedar Grove Fire Chief Joseph Lipari said that his
department's firefighters had been specially trained to perform "steep
rescues" like the one at the water tower.
The man, who is white, has brown hair and was dressed in
black boots, jeans and a thin shirt. He appeared to have turned blue with cold
after spending hours in the subfreezing temperatures Monday.
He was flown by State Police helicopter to University
Hospital in Newark. Verona Public Safety Director Doug Huber said Tuesday that
he did not know the full extent of his injuries, but the man had suffered a
broken ankle and possibly internal injuries. He had not been interviewed
because he was incoherent, Huber said.
Huber added that Verona's emergency response personnel will
review the incident to see what they can learn from it.
"Everything turned out very well, but the police, fire
and rescue squad will all sit and meet to see what if anything we could have
done better," Huber said Tuesday.
583