A young woman who plunged into an ice-covered pond in New Jersey Sunday got to thank the good Samaritan who rescued her from her sinking car.
Fatuma Kamara, 23, was on her way to work when she lost control of her car into Arnold's Pond off Goffle Road in Hawthorne.
"I'm just screaming, the next thing I knew, the car was in the water," she said.
In seconds, Don McEwan, a former detective with the Passaic County prosecutor's office, was there. As the water rose to the roof inside the car, McEwan tried to break the driver's side window more than 50 times as Kamara screamed, "I don't want to die."
Then two Hawthorne cops arrived and plunged into the waters. They ended up pulling Kamara out, while others rallied to help as well.
But, as Kamara told McEwan Monday during the touching moment she met the good Samaritan: "You're the very first person I saw jump in there, and you kept telling me, 'it's going to be OK, it's going to be OK."
McEwan said he knew all along that Kamara would be fine, especially after she was pulled out of the car and the first thing she did was give him her purse.
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Kamara said she didn't have a rush. But rescue officials say not everyone should try a rescue like that.
"It's a judgement call, 100 percent," said Hawthorne Fire Chief Joe Speranza. "It's a terrifying thing, if you come across it, 'What do I do?'"
But McEwan said he would do it all over again.
