Metro

Hudson rescue

Darren McNamara and Anthony Selvaggi

Darren McNamara and Anthony Selvaggi (Brigitte Stelzer)

RIVER DRAMA: A car is hauled from the Hudson yesterday after the driver was saved by Detectives Darren McNamara and Anthony Selvaggi. (
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An NYPD cop saved a despondent New Jersey woman from certain death in the Hudson River yesterday morning after she crashed through a fence along a pedestrian path, authorities said.

Detective Darren McNamara stripped off his gun belt and jumped into the frigid water to rescue the suicidal woman, who had crashed her Toyota Camry near West 96th Street just after 10 a.m.

The woman, who sources identified as Letrice Alves of Mahwah, NJ, made it out of the partially submerged car and was floating on her back about 30 yards away when McNamara swam out to her.

“Once I got up to her, I realized she was alive, but at first, she was just motionless,” said McNamara, a 13-year-veteran from Emergency Service Unit Truck 2 in Harlem. “By the time I got up to her, she made eye contact with me and I heard her mumbling.”

McNamara, 37, brought her to shore, where Detective Anthony Selvaggi pulled them to safety.

“If we waited any longer, she probably would have went under,” said Selvaggi, 42, a 13-year veteran.

Alves was undergoing a psychiatric evaluation at St. Luke’s Hospital.

Sources said that she was despondent over family problems and wanted to end her life.

The 42-year-old real-estate agent was driving south on the Henry Hudson Parkway when she veered off the road, striking another car and hurtling onto a riverside path that’s often crowded with cyclists and joggers.

“Its wipers were still going and the car radio was on,” said Michael Golden, 49, a cyclist from the Upper West Side. “You could see someone in the water, but they weren’t moving frantically, just casually floating.”

Additional reporting by Jamie Schram