Act of heroism featured on TV series

LANSDALE » A local woman will be featured on an episode of a new national television show, re-enacting her role in a lifesaving beach rescue more than a decade ago.

Katie Corrado, who earned a national recognition in 2008 for her role in the rescue, said she still thinks back to the day her life changed, and she helped save another, on Memorial Day weekend in 2006.

“For me, it was such a meaningful experience, not just because I almost drowned, but because it really ticked off in my head that I really have a calling,” she said.

On May 28, 2006, Corrado was relaxing on the beach near Long Beach Island, New Jersey, with her then-boyfriend and his family. She had seen a man walking along the beach in tinted glasses earlier that day and thought he looked slightly unusual, but didn’t think of him again until she heard him calling for help from far out in the ocean.

“I was taking a nap, and he was calling for help, and I was in a half daze. I woke up, and just started running out to get him, because the beach was packed but there were no lifeguards,” she said.

Corrado was 23 at the time, and had been a swimmer for years, but had no lifeguard training. As she swam out to the man, she was caught up in the same current that had carried him out beyond other swimmers.

“I thought, ‘I’ll just go get him,’ but there was a rip current, and that’s what got him caught in the first place. I got caught in it too, so I was out there holding him up,” she said. “This guy, Greg, who was drowning, was in a full-on panic and was pulling me under with him.”

While she helped the man, who was later identified as Gregory Steirer of Philadelphia, her then-boyfriend, Gachino Galante, and another man on the beach, Michael H. Schreiber, soon joined Corrado in the water, and Schreiber brought two floating surfboards out with him. The three put Steirer on one board and Galante on the other — and noticed Corrado had gotten separated from the rest of the group.

“I got ripped away, and then I just had to try to make it to a jetty. I did, but I was getting smacked into it, and ended up breaking some ribs,” Corrado said. “Luckily, someone had called 911, so these cops came tenderly walking down the slippery jetty I was in the middle of, and they pulled me out of it. By then, I was down for the count.”

As Corrado was rescued, Galante

SUBMITTED PHOTO — FOR DIGITAL FIRST MEDIA Katie Corrado poses with the Carnegie Medal presented to her in 2008 for her lifesaving actions in a water rescue in 2006.