A Harlem teacher who vanished last month was hauled out of the waters off Staten Island by rescuers after an apparent suicide attempt today, authorities said.
The nearly lifeless body of Hannah Upp, 23, surfaced one mile offshore shortly after 11:30 a.m. and was spotted by a Staten Island ferry captain, who was halfway through a run from the Whitehall Ferry Terminal in Manhattan.
“I noticed a head bobbing out of the water,” Capt. Christopher Covella said, describing how he stopped the ferry and dispatched a pair of deckhands in a lifeboat.
Upp was floating facedown with her arms extended. She was wearing just a jogging bra and athletic shorts, with no identifica tion, wallet or jewelry.
“When we first saw her, I honestly thought she was dead,” said Michael Sabatino, 28, who with his fellow deckhand Ephraim Washington, 31, hauled Upp on to a lifeboat and took her to Staten Island.
“When we pulled her out, she took a gasp of air,” Sabatino said, adding that Upp cried for three seconds before losing consciousness again.
Police believe Upp jumped off a Staten Island pier and that strong currents pulled her one mile out.
Once she was safely on shore, Upp told authorities on Staten Island that her name is “Hannah” and said her mother had reported her missing.
She was taken to Richmond University Hospital, where she was treated in the emergency room and then transferred to another unit for a psychiatric evaluation, according to police sources.
“She didn’t seem to know what happened. She was disoriented, asking where she was and why she was here,” said an employee at the hospital, where Upp’s mother and a friend came to visit her today.
A Bryn Mawr College graduate, Upp disappeared on Aug. 29, just days before the first day of school at Thurgood Marshall Academy, where she was supposed to teach Spanish.
Additional reporting by Larry Celona and Kati Cornell