An idyllic run along the Upper East Side ended in a dramatic rescue yesterday when a jogger helped save a despondent man who had jumped into the East River.
Brendan Reskakis, 24, an account manager at Bloomberg LP, was jogging along the FDR Drive just before 11 a.m. when he saw a man climb over the path railing and leap into the water at East 96th Street.
“There was no one else around, and I ran as fast as I could to catch up with him,” Reskakis told The Post.
Reskakis and another man, who declined to give his name, got a 12-foot pole from a construction site and tried to help the jumper.
But he wouldn’t grab on.
“I kept shouting, ‘Come back to us! Come close to the wall!’ and he kept saying, ‘No one cares about me!’ ” Reskakis said, adding the man swam for the wall only after growing tired.
“It was only when he started tiring out — where he could no longer tread water anymore — that he started swimming toward the wall,” Rekakis said.
Reskakis ran a quarter-mile until he found a couple. They dialed 911.
Firefighters, cops and EMS workers arrived and tossed the man a hose, authorities said. Three rescuers pulled him to safety.
The unidentified man, who wasn’t seriously injured, was taken to Metropolitan Hospital for evaluation.