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The man, who was tended to by waiting emergency responders, “told us he tried the same thing in Paterson yesterday,” Little Ferry Police Chief Ralph Verdi told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. “He said he was taken to the hospital, released and then jumped from our bridge this morning.”
The jumped — whose identity was being withheld by CLIFFVIEW PILOT — leaped into the water from the Route 46 bridge, which is under reconstruction, just before 8:30 a.m. Little Ferry and Ridgefield Park police responded, along with Bergen County Sheriff’s officers.
Meberg’s “shipmate,” Gravy (Courtesy: Kristin Meberg)
Nearly two and a half hours earlier, Mark Meberg, who canoes the river most Sundays, launched from Carlstadt with his Cocker Spaniel, Gravy, aboard.
Little Ferry firefighters were putting a boat into the water when Meberg came paddling under the bridge.
Seeing the commotion above, he asked what was happening and was told about the jumper.
“He looked around and saw the man holding onto a piling,” Meberg’s wife, Kristin, told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
“Then he got to him, gave him a life preserver and had the man hang onto the back of the canoe,” she said. “They came ashore and the man walked out of the water on his own with no injuries.
“If not for the first responders, Mark might not have easily gone past without seeing him.”
CLIFFVIEW PILOT was connecting Meberg and Verdi so that the chief could arrange a formal borough commendation.
Meberg said he didn’t want recognition. He’s happy simply knowing that he did a good turn, his wife said.
“He thinks all the attention is really unnecessary,” she said.
CLIFFVIEW PILOT photo
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