Mark Batista FDNY firefighter drowns trying to save daughter along Jersey Shore after 11 year old girl getting caught in rip. Teaneck, NJ man remembered.
Rescuing was in his blood, even if it meant costing him his own life. A NYC firefighter and father-of-three drowned while attempting to save his young daughter as she swam at Jersey Shore.
Mark Batista, a 15 year veteran with the Fire Department of New York (FDNY), died on Friday morning as he desperately sought to bring his 11 year old daughter back to shore.
The 39-year-old, of Teaneck, New Jersey, reportedly went into the water at Sylvania Avenue Beach, in Avon-by-the-Sea, at around 8:30am to help the girl who had come to be caught in a rip current and was being pulled out to sea.
Rescuing was in his blood, even if it meant costing him his own life
Witnesses reported two swimmers in distress and rescuers found the child around 10 minutes later, according to NBC News. Batista was found in the water at 10am and despite efforts by emergency service to save his life, the firefighter was later pronounced dead at hospital.
Batista’s drowning is the second to happen along New Jersey’s coastline this year. Both times there were no life guards on duty, with the previous drowning happening after signs forbidding swimming at the area known to have unpredictable currents.
Lifeguards are not due to start working at the beach full time until Saturday and the Monmouth County Sheriff’s Office issued a statement on Facebook warning people to ‘please not go in the water when there are no lifeguards on duty’.
During a family beach trip, Batista’s daughter had reportedly swum out to sea when a rip current hit and swept her further out. The name and age of the daughter has not been released but the girl’s father shared a video for her 11th birthday 10 months ago.
‘I promised to take her to the beach’.
Rushing to rescue her, Mark Batista was pulled into the water by the rip current, his friends and family said.
With no lifeguards on duty, this father did everything in his power to save his little girl.
‘And it’s deceptive because it looks so calm, but you don’t see the undertow,’ local resident, Bob Zielinski told CBS News.
Around eight months before his death, the girl’s father shared a photo of him and his daughter on Instagram, writing: ‘I can’t promise to be here the rest of your life but what I can promise is to love you for the rest of mine #mynumberonefan.’
Batista, who joined the New York Fire Department Emergency Medical Services in 2008, was found about 50 feet (15 meters) from the shore. He was transported to Jersey Shore University Medical Center, where he died, WNBC reported.
The man’s daughter was also transported to hospital and is expected to recover.
Mark Batista’s wife, Lenin Batista, posted a tribute to her husband on Instagram.
Wrote Lenin: ‘Thank you everyone for your messages, I would lie if I said I read them all, but thank you very much from my heart.
‘I am having the worst experience of my life, I feel lost, heartbroken and very afraid. I’m not receiving calls because truth is I don’t feel ready to talk.’
Adding: ‘But if I count on your prayers and I know that God’s arm will not be cut off. Blessings!’
In a statement, FDNY spokesperson Jim Long said the department was ‘heartbroken.’
He said: ‘Firefighter Batista was a dedicated public servant who spent 15 years serving in the FDNY, as both an EMT and a firefighter.
‘We join his family in mourning his tragic passing.’
‘That his wife had to watch him go into that water and not come out, it kills me.’
Neighbor Dalais Sanchez told CBS News that he received news of the firefighter’s drowning from the victim’s wife.
‘When I called her an hour later, we started crying,’ she said.
‘She says, “I lost him, I lost him. What am I gonna do? I lost him. Dalais, I lost him. It’s Anthony”.’
Tragically, Ms Sanchez said Mr Batista was not a fan of the beach and the night before he drowned had said of his daughter: ‘I promised to take her to the beach’.
Rescuing was in his blood, and even until this last day, it was his own blood that he saved.
Veteran emergency technician, and Mr Batista’s friend, Janelle Rivers, told The New York Times: ‘That his wife had to watch him go into that water and not come out, it kills me.
‘The life of his daughter is the result of his heroism, and that is everything a wife and mother could ever ask for.’
There was a low rip current risk Friday morning, according to the National Weather Service at Mount Holly.
