Groton — For Groton City police Lt. Erick Jenkins, the scariest moment might have been when he finally got an arm into the car only to find he couldn’t reach the lock on the passenger side door.

But more than six months after Jenkins helped retrieve an 85-year-old woman from her sinking Honda Civic at Eastern Point Beach, all of the moments are still vivid in his mind.

Jenkins is one of three Groton City police officers who, with help from firefighters and good Samaritan John Sidlinger, brought Marie Fitzgerald to safety after her vehicle crashed through a pedestrian railing and into the frigid, choppy water March 31.

Over the past week, as they reported to duty at various times, Jenkins, Youth Officer Scott LeSage and Officer Michael Spellman each received the department’s Lifesaving Award for their role in helping Fitzgerald.

On Wednesday, Jenkins and LeSage sat down with The Day to relive their experience.

According to Jenkins, both he and LeSage had just finished up at a scene where a person had died and were almost done for the day when the call came over the radio: “Car in the water, possibly occupied.”

Jenkins, not ordinarily on patrol, switched gears and turned his unmarked car around, falling in line behind a firetruck that also was en route to the scene.

He remembers having one fleeting thought when he saw the vehicle floating beyond a small sidewalk and about 10 feet of rock: “How did she get that far?”

Then, he and the others sprang to action, sharing few words in the process.

“Working with these guys, sometimes you can just look at them and just your body language tells you what you need to do,” LeSage said.

Not knowing who would be getting into the water, the officers stripped their duty belts, guns and anything else that may weigh them down.

Firefighters worked with Sidlinger — who was in the water and had smashed the car’s windshield by the time emergency responders arrived — to tie a rope to the car, which LeSage and Spellman later held to keep it close.

Once Jenkins made it clear he was going to replace Sidlinger, a firefighter tied a rope to him, too.

Halligan bar in hand, Jenkins worked his way toward Fitzgerald’s car, noting that the water was seat-level, running scenarios through his mind and hardly registering the frigidness of the water.

Not wanting to smash the passenger side window because of Fitzgerald’s proximity to it, Jenkins opted for the window behind it.

That’s when he reached around to find he couldn’t unlock the door.

As Jenkins worked to develop plan B, LeSage and Spellman continued to fight with the rope, working to stop the choppy waters from taking the car.

Spellman, perched on a wet rock, his hands going white from the rope wrapped around them, was yelling to Jenkins that he was running out of time.

“You’re thinking, but not getting a feeling,” LeSage said of those few minutes where the clock seemed to be ticking too fast, yet at the same time barely seemed to be moving.

“Certain training kicks in, and you just do what you think you should to get the person out,” Jenkins elaborated.

Jenkins, deciding he had no choice but to break the passenger side window, lifted the Halligan bar once more, keenly aware of all the eyes watching his every move.

He hit the rope on his first try, and on his second didn’t swing hard enough.

It was critical, now, Jenkins realized. The woman was on her back, staring at the ceiling, pulling oxygen from the last four or so inches of water-free space that remained.

He swung, made a hole, swung again, broke through and, to his relief, opened the door from the inside with remarkable ease.

Fitzgerald had the wherewithal to grab the rope and help guide herself as Jenkins reached in, Jenkins said. Insisting she was fine, Fitzgerald went to the hospital as a precaution and was released within hours.

The aftermath

Looking back, Jenkins and LeSage said it couldn’t have been much longer than 25 minutes from the time the 911 call was made to the time Fitzgerald was safely lying on a backboard on the rocks.

Still in “police mode,” Jenkins immediately began searching the scene for witnesses. He’d found three when a fellow officer came up and put a blanket around him.

“I was like, ‘What’re you doing?’” Jenkins recalled. “I didn’t realize it, but I was shivering.”

He and LeSage look back on the rescue in the same way: with modesty.

Jenkins credits a combination of luck, the officers’ dive team training and the woman’s outward calmness for the successful save.

“I think if she panicked, we would have had a bigger issue ... but she did great,” he said.

LeSage said protecting the public is “what we signed up for.”

“It’s our job,” he said. “I don’t like to take too much credit.”

“He was in the Air Force, I was in the Marines,” Jenkins agreed. “We’ve been serving, helping people out ever since we got out of high school.”

l.boyle@theday.com 

Groton City Police Department award winners

Groton City Police Department award winners:

Chief's Award

Winners: Corporal Katie Ellis, Officer Brittany Duclos

Reason: Ellis and Duclos in May located and apprehended a burglar who was in possession of items stolen from an elderly person's home.

Lifesaving Award

Winners: Officer Lance Brown, firefighter George DeVirgillio

Reason: In February, Brown and DeVirgillio performed CPR and defibrillation on an unresponsive elderly resident who later credited them with saving his life.

Lifesaving Award

Winners: Lt. Erick Jenkins, Youth Officer Scott LeSage, Officer Michael Spellman, John Sidlinger

Reason: All four men worked together to rescue an 85-year-old woman from her car that was sinking at Eastern Point Beach in March.

Meritorious Service Award

Winner: Detective Paul Ruddy

Reason: Ruddy performed CPR on a 9-month-old boy that had fallen into a bathtub full of water in August while advanced life support was en route.

Unit Citation

Winners: Officer Brittany Duclos, Officer Trish Lieteau

Reason: In August, the two officers were able to develop a suspect in a burglary, establish probable cause for the person's arrest and track down and recover the stolen property.