The rescue. (Edmund J. Coppa)
Two NYPD divers staged a harrowing rescue at sea yesterday morning, fighting six-foot swells to save a man trapped underneath a boat capsized south of Rockaway Beach.
The unidentified man was fishing with three other men and two children when their day trip turned into a nightmare just before 10:45 a.m.
The other passengers were pulled from the water by two good Samaritans. But the man, in his 50s, was unaccounted for.
Coast Guard and Nassau County police rescuers responded to the overturned boat, about three miles off Atlantic Beach, after receiving a 911 call from nearby boaters.
Shortly after, NYPD Detectives Jeffrey Dowling and Darren Blum jumped from a helicopter and plunged into the turbulent waters to find the missing fisherman.
John Bologna, 48, of Oceanside, LI, saved the remaining passengers before authorities arrived and watched the scene unfold.
He saw the 20-foot boat capsize with the men and two boys — one believed to be 5 years old — on board.
“They were bobbing in the water, saying, ‘Help us! Help us!’ The kids were terrified. I don’t think they’re going in the water anytime soon,” Bologna said.
Bologna’s fishing partner, Martin Safer, 55, of Lido Beach, said one of the men was screaming, “Get my baby!”
“We pulled the first child out of the water and then the father into the boat,” Safer said.
“Once they were on our boat, they told us about a sixth person.”
The missing man had been underwater for several minutes.
Blum and Dowling, a 10-year veteran and lead diver of the police scuba team, didn’t have much time to save him.
The bouncing boat was upside down and 80 percent submerged when they arrived, and the vessel’s bow was sticking up because of an air pocket in the cabin.
The heroes could feel the boat sinking when they spotted two feet sticking out of the cabin.
Dowling grabbed the unconscious man and held him against his chest, as Blum guided them to the surface after getting stuck in tangles of fishing line.
After the divers carried the man to a helicopter, one of them gave a thumbs-up and said the man had a pulse, Bologna said.
The man was airlifted to Staten Island University Hospital, where he was on a ventilator and in critical but stable condition last night, sources said.
The five other passengers were transported to hospitals for treatment of minor injuries.