Three men were rescued from Jamaica Bay after falling through the ice Friday, with NYPD scuba divers pulling them from the water and police helicopter pilots then flying them to safety, cops said.
Three men, all 22 years old, fell through the ice into the estuary’s frigid waters off Norton Drive and Bayswater Ave. in Bayswater around 4:15 p.m., according to law enforcement.
Video captured from a rescue chopper hovering above Jamaica Bay showed the NYPD’s frogmen in action, with multiple divers crawling across the ice and plunging into the frigid waters to attach the victims to tethers, before the helicopters airlifted them to safety.
Earlier this evening, members of our Scuba Team, Aviation Unit, Emergency Service Unit, and the @FDNY rescued three individuals from frozen waters in Far Rockaway.
No matter the conditions, our officers are always ready to answer the call. pic.twitter.com/kA42EU2srT
— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) February 6, 2026
A local man who filmed the whole ordeal from the shore said this wasn’t the victims’ first time out on the ice. He said locals had warned them to stay off the bay’s frozen surface.
“They’ve been doing this for a couple of weeks now,” said 29-year-old Thomas Castro, whose Bayswater home overlooks the bay. “We told them to stop. We told them to not do that, and they look at us like we have three heads.”
On Friday the men ventured farther out than usual — about a football field’s length from the shore — when the ice gave out.
“They all started panicking and screaming for help,” Castro said. “They were way out there.”
“Luckily, it was warm and not a day like tomorrow where it’s going to feel like negative 20 degrees,” Castro said.
Two of the men were taken to Mt. Sinai Nassau, while the third was transported to St. Johns Hospital, all of them in stable condition, cops said.
