Freezing cold water in New London harbor just about did in a fisherman who fell in Wednesday evening, but he caught the attention of a man on a boat nearby.
The man was clinging to the piling on the southeast corner of City Pier, said Pat Kennedy, whose brother John coaxed the man off the piling with a "life sling" over to the ladder up to the pier.
"He was in shock so he couldn't get up the ladder," Kennedy said, from the bow of the boat he then brought over, the John F. Kennedy.
"And I grabbed his belt, and my son Paddy too – we lifted him up and put him on the transom," Kennedy said. "We had blankets here and a sleeping bag. We covered him and raced right over to Station New London."
There, the Coast Guard helped get the man to the dock and a waiting ambulance. At the hospital, the man told authorities he had been fishing alone and fell in.
"If you're going to be near the water, operate with someone so you're not alone in case an accident does happen," said Lt. Dan Tavernier, the station commander. "In this case, the victim was fishing off the pier, fell in the water, and nobody even knew he was there."
"That poor guy. I felt so bad because he was moaning," Kennedy recalled. "He was suffering. He could hardly even talk."
