Coney Island, NY – Elderly Widower Trapped on Beach in High Waters Rescued by NYPD

Coney Island, NY – Even as Hurricane Bill brushed past Nova Scotia on Sunday afternoon, its effects – from pounding surf and gusty showers to beach erosion and damage to endangered bird habitats – were still being felt across the New York region in ways that were by turns striking and subtle.

Sgt. Glenn Amico and Officer Sean Feliciano were on patrol at Stillwell and Surf Avenues, in Coney Island, at 8:50 a.m. when they took a call about a man in distress. They drove their Ford Explorer onto the beach. They could see a man slumped over at the end of a long, rocky jetty as waves crashed all around him.

“Both of us were concerned that a wave would knock him off the jetty,” Sergeant Amico said. “We didn’t know if his leg was broken.”

The two officers stripped down to their shoes, pants and undershirts. They left their clothing, weapons and belts with a colleague. Officer Feliciano tried walking about 200 yards onto the rocks to reach the man.

Sergeant Amico tried to swim out there, but by about 15 feet from the shore, the surf was already up to his neck, so he scrambled onto the rocks.
“Every time a wave hit, it went up over our heads,” said Sergeant Amico, who walked behind Officer Feliciano.

The man – identified as Maurichiu Burman, 76 – was in a precarious position. “He was leaning against the rocks, just disoriented,” Officer Feliciano said.

After determining that Mr. Burman could walk, the officers slowly escorted him back to the beach. He had gone for a swim even though the beach was closed, he told them.
“We both felt that he was going to get knocked in, and we didn’t know if we could help him at that point,” Sergeant Amico said.

Mr. Burman, an immigrant from Moldova, was once involved in another police matter with a less fortunate outcome. In April 2007, he was walking with his wife, Reyzya Ratsa Burman, 73, from a Passover Seder when she was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver in Borough Park, Brooklyn. They were returning to their home at the David Minkin Residence, a home for the elderly, where Mr. Burman still lives.