Dispatcher Was First Contact After Tragedy

When a suicidal woman drove her van into the Hudson River last night in tiny Newburgh (NY), four of her children were inside the vehicle with her. But her 10 year-old son managed to escape from the van as it was sinking and swim to shore. A passerby drove him a short distance to the Newburgh fire station, where lone dispatcher Ismael Torres answered a knock at the front door about 8 p.m. and took the child inside. Torres questioned the child, who was wet, cold and initially unable to coherently described what had occurred. However, with patience, Torres determined what occurred and pinpointed the van’s location, then dispatched police and fire units to the scene. Sadly, Lashanda Armstrong and her three children, ages 2, 5 and 11 months, did not survive. Torres told reporters he obtained a blanket for the child and bought him some M&Ms. “My emotions started kicking in where you want to cry but you know that all you are going to do is delay the response if you let your emotions kick it,” Torres told a reporter. Police said that 10 minutes before the drownings, they received a report from an Armstrong relative of a domestic disturbance at her apartment. However, when officers arrived, they found the apartment empty. Watch a video about Torres’ actions after the break.