NORTHAMPTON — Police Officer Garrett Wojcicki was sitting in his cruiser on Monday, monitoring traffic from the Elks Lodge parking lot on Pine Street in Florence, when he saw something he did not expect.
A 17-year-old boy had been riding a motorized bike on the sidewalk at around noon when he rounded a corner toward the Pine Street bridge that carries traffic over the Mill River.
He crashed into the edge of the bridge’s guardrail and fell to his right, tumbled over a damaged fence that runs along the river, and dropped an estimated 15 feet into the frigid, shallow water.
Wojcicki said he radioed for an ambulance, ran over and looked for the teen, thinking he had landed on the shore.
“When I came over here, he was actually in the river,” said Wojcicki, who on Tuesdsay showed a reporter where the crash happened. “I was shocked when I found him down there. … I thought he had fallen on some of these thick vines” that have overgrown along the water’s edge.
A fence made of concrete posts and twisted metal cables — which has rusted, crumbled and begun to tilt in several places — runs along the river, but the section closest to the bridge is also among the most damaged. On Tuesday, an orange DPW sawhorse was in the spot where the teen fell to prevent further incidents.
Wojcicki said he reached down as the teen reached up. They grasped hands and he was able to pull the boy to safety. The teen suffered cuts and bruises that Wojcicki described as minor.
“The whole time, he was thanking me,” Wojcicki said. “I couldn’t believe I saw it,” and no other cars, pedestrians or bicyclists had been in the area at the time.
Wojcicki said the teen had been riding slowly and his mother was called to the scene. He was taken to Cooley Dickinson Hospital for evaluation.
“There were some concerns of a concussion,” Wojcicki said. “I think he was shocked. It’s a long fall.”
When first responders pulled the bike out of the river, the front wheel came off.
After the incident, Wojcicki found that he was covered in tiny insects that live along the river.
“I remember going back to my cruiser and feeling them on my head, itching me,” he said.
Wojcicki said he did not expect his actions to receive the public’s attention. A Northampton Police Department Facebook post highlighting his response to the incident has received hundreds of reactions and dozens of positive comments, a response the officer called “overwhelming.”
Brian Steele can be reached at bsteele@gazettenet.com.