Railroad workers save drowning man from floodwaters in Piscataway, New Jersey
PISCATAWAY, New Jersey (WABC) -- Amid torrential storms Monday night, two railroad workers saved a man who nearly drowned in the floodwaters in Piscataway, New Jersey.
Paul Clawges and Barry Sanders, a Conrail track specialist and mechanic, respectively, spotted the unidentified man in the floodwater along New Market Road while responding to a call about a wire that went down.
"It looked like they were swimming," Sanders said. "It seemed very odd, the movement they were making in the water. We were like, 'Yo! Yo! Are you OK? ... This looks really weird, what you're doing.'"
Though advised by others not to go in the water, Clawges braved the floods and jumped in when it became clear the man was unresponsive.
"He was not lifting his head, and he stopped moving, and there was nothing, so that's when I just jumped in," Clawges said. "I just picked him up, dragged him out and started doing CPR."
After at least three minutes of CPR, the nearly drowned man began breathing.
"I didn't think I was going to be able to get him, but we got him breathing." Clawges said.
Clawges used both compressions and mouth-to-mouth in order to save the man's life, though the latter is no longer a recommended step in CPR - a choice his wife, a nurse, disagreed with.
"She kind of gave me crap when I got home about giving the guy mouth-to-mouth because she's a nurse over in Hackensack," Clawges said. "I felt like I wasn't going to be able to get him with just compressions."
The workers were sure to call 911 as soon as they could, and eventually Piscataway Mayor Brian Wahler made his way to the scene.
"Once I arrived on scene with EMS ... he was speaking, cognizant," Wahler said. "It brought joy, the fact that we didn't lose a life."
The workers are being praised as heroes, braving aggressive flooding in the middle of the night in order to save a man's life. Clawges, though, simply sees the act as doing the right thing.
"I'm just a guy that was in the right place at the right time to do the right thing," he said.
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