Incident location, Long Island
What Happened
A 19-year-old childcare provider nearly drowned in a backyard pool in Ocean Bay Park on Fire Island Sunday afternoon before Suffolk County Police Marine Bureau officers on foot patrol heard her homeowner’s desperate screams and rushed to her aid, police said. The incident unfolded near 56 East Bay View Walk at approximately 1 p.m. on Sunday, June 22, 2026, according to Patch.
Sgt. Kelly Locascio and Officers Jordan Colon and Tyler Williams were conducting a routine foot patrol in the area when they heard screams emanating from a nearby backyard, police said. Upon responding to the scene, the officers learned that the young woman — a childcare provider whose name was not released by police — had gone underwater in the pool and failed to resurface, according to Patch. The exact circumstances that led the woman to submerge and lose consciousness were not immediately detailed in the police account.
Before the officers could intervene, the homeowner had already entered the pool, physically pulled the unresponsive woman from the water, and begun administering CPR, police said. Officer Williams then took over CPR efforts. According to Patch, the woman regained consciousness after expelling water and beginning to breathe on her own — a critical sign that the rapid chain of response from the homeowner and the officers had succeeded in preventing a fatal outcome.
Because Fire Island communities are accessible only by ferry or boat and have no direct road connections to the Long Island mainland, standard ambulance transport was not an option. The officers transported the woman aboard Marine Boat Juliet to Timber Point Marina, where Islip Exchange personnel were waiting. Those personnel then transported her by ground to South Shore University Hospital in Bay Shore, police said. She was listed in stable condition following her arrival at the hospital.
No charges were filed in connection with the incident, and police have not identified any criminal element in what appears to have been a sudden medical emergency in a private residential pool. The three Marine Bureau officers — Sgt. Locascio, Officer Colon, and Officer Williams — were commended in the police department’s account of the event for their swift and effective response.
Location & Road Context
Ocean Bay Park is a small, car-free community on the barrier island known as Fire Island, located off the South Shore of Long Island in Suffolk County. The community is accessible only by ferry service from Bay Shore and has no roads in the traditional sense — residents and visitors travel by foot, bicycle, or wagon along wooden boardwalks and sandy paths. Because of this unique geography, the Suffolk County Police Marine Bureau plays a critical public safety role on Fire Island, with officers regularly conducting foot patrols through communities like Ocean Bay Park and responding to emergencies via boat rather than patrol car.
The address cited by police — 56 East Bay View Walk — is a residential property within Ocean Bay Park. Timber Point Marina, where the Marine Boat Juliet delivered the woman after the rescue, is located in Great River and serves as a key logistical hub for emergency medical transfers between Fire Island and mainland Suffolk County facilities. South Shore University Hospital in Bay Shore is the nearest major hospital to that marina departure point.
Broader Impact
The rescue highlights the unique and life-saving function of the Suffolk County Police Marine Bureau on Fire Island, where the absence of roads means that traditional emergency medical services cannot respond directly to residential addresses. Fire Island saw a similar demonstration of marine officers’ critical role just weeks earlier: according to a Patch report from April 25, 2026, Marine Bureau officers also responded to and helped extinguish a house fire in Ocean Beach. The speed with which a bystander — in this case, the homeowner — began CPR before officers arrived was almost certainly a decisive factor in the victim’s survival; medical consensus holds that every minute without CPR following cardiac or respiratory arrest dramatically reduces survival odds, making community-level emergency response skills especially vital in remote or vehicle-free communities like those found across Fire Island.