At first glance, Tom Heinssen thought the brown object poking out of the water 100 yards to his left side was a harbor seal that had inexplicably made its way that far up the Connecticut River.

“It looked weird to me. I thought, 'How in God's name is there a seal all the way up the river?'” Heinssen recalled in a phone interview Wednesday.

As he got closer, he saw two hands “barely coming out of the water,” and quickly realized what he initially thought was a seal was the top of a person's head.

Heinssen, a captain with the salvage and boat recovery company Sea Tow, had launched one of the company’s boats from Old Saybrook on a cold but sunny April day to tow a 35-foot boat that had become stranded the night before in the river north of Glastonbury.

He'd offered a ride to the owner of the boat, a man in his 30s, but he told Heinssen he’d meet him there.

“I assumed he had a way out there,” Heinssen said.

His way out there, in turned out, was to paddle on what Heinssen believes was a wakeboard from the bank of the river to his boat — a seemingly short distance away. But the man, a relatively new boater, did not take into account the strong current in the river that time of year, Heinssen said.

The man had been in the water about 20 minutes by the time Heinssen arrived.

“I’m not sure how much longer he would’ve had at that temperature,” Heinssen said.

Heinssen has rescued people from the water in the summertime, but it’s “not easy to pull someone out of water that’s deadweight,” he said. 

The man had lost feeling in his body but was still conscious and alert, Heinssen said. Once the man was aboard the Sea Tow vessel, Heinssen wrapped him in towels and sat with him until he warmed up and regained feeling in his body.

For his quick thinking and expert navigation on the scene, Sea Tow recently recognized Heinssen, who was a member of the Connecticut State Police for 20-plus years and a member of the Old Lyme Police Department for seven, with its national lifesaving award during its annual meeting, which was held virtually.

As luck would have it, Heinssen came to the boater's aid again several months later at the end of this year's boating season.

"This time was not as bad. It was a fuel situation," he said. "As I came up on him, we immediately looked at each other and we're like, 'I recognize you.'"

j.bergman@theday.com