Photos: A heroic rescue attempt at Niagara Falls
NOTE: The images in this collection are graphic and may be upsetting.
When emergency responders arrived Wednesday afternoon at Niagara Falls State Park, all they knew was there was a report of a car in the rapids near the brink of the world's most famous waterfall.
Within a few hours, largely via social media, the world watched as the U.S. Coast Guard attempted a harrowing rescue via helicopter. The joy of seeing a person pulled from the submerged vehicle quickly turned to sorrow as it was learned that the woman inside the vehicle did not survive.
Buffalo News photographers captured the events over the course of the day and into Thursday as the power of the rushing water pushed the vehicle closer to the edge of the cataracts.
Emergency crews wait for assistance
Emergency responders on site wait on a helicopter to assist in getting the driver out of the car at 1:31 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2021. Witnesses reported seeing a car in the Niagara River around 11:50 a.m. It was at the brink of the falls near Prospect Point.
Entry point
Tire tracks were left in the snow by the car that left the road and went into the Niagara River. The vehicle was carried to the brink of the American Falls near Prospect Point on Dec. 8, 2021. “Any time that we can bring someone home for their family, that’s the best thing that we can do,” said Petty Officer 2nd Class Derrian Duryea, noting the motto of the Coast Guard’s rescue swimmers is “So others may live.”
“As I was coming down on the cable, the only thing that was going through my head was, ‘How am I going to get to this survivor?’ ” said Petty Officer 2nd Class Derrian Duryea, who did not know at the time that the woman was already dead.
New York State Parks officials haven't figured out a way to remove the car in which a Williamsville woman died Wednesday from the brink of Niagara Falls without endangering more lives.