Woman honored for beach rescue to be featured in new TV series
Katie Corrado was recognized in 2008, is set to appear on episode of MSNBC show ‘Saved’
LANSDALE >> A local woman will be featured on an episode of a new national television show, reenacting 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 Katie 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 Katie 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,” she said.
As Corrado was rescued, her friend Galante and Schreiber were able to put Steirer on top of the floating boards, and rescuers soon arrived to bring the three men back into shore. Steirer, the man who had initially gotten caught in the current, was treated for hypothermia, while Corrado was treated for abrasions, contusions, and those broken ribs.
“It all happened so fast. I was like, ‘I’m a little too far out in the ocean,’ and then it was like, ‘Oh, I’m gonna die,’ just like that. It was really scary,” she said, snapping her fingers to show how fast the situation changed.
In time, she recovered from the physical injuries, but her mental recovery took ended up taking years of therapy and counseling.
“I’d wake up in the night with this recurring dream that I didn’t have any arms or legs, I was in the ocean, and I was just this torso that was trying not to drown. Which is exactly what it felt like when I was out in the riptide,” she said.
Nearly two years later, Corrado got a large envelope in the mail from her New Jersey hospital that she thought was another medical bill, but turned out to be quite the opposite: she, along with Galante and Schreiber, were awarded Carnegie Medals by the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission, a Pittsburgh-based fund established in 1904 by industrialist Andrew Carnegie to recognize those who risk their lives to save others.
“I just started walking
right to my parents’ fireplace, to throw it in, because I was mad. I thought it was another bill — I thought, ‘I saved someone’s life, and I’m gonna be in debt forever now.’”
“My mom said, ‘Don’t throw it in the fire, I’ll open it,’ and inside was the letter from the Carnegie Foundation,” she said.
She still doesn’t know who nominated her for the award — her guess is someone from the hospital — but Corrado said she still has the medal, and the $6,000 prize with the award went largely to paying down those medical bills. Life went on, and she finished school and worked several marketing jobs around the North Penn area, and eventually contacted Steirer, the man she helped rescue, via Facebook.
“He was so happy, and said he didn’t ever think he’d be able to personally thank me. I’m friends with him now, and it’s such a huge ripple effect — he’s a college professor now, so how many lives has he been able to impact?” she said.
In early 2016, Corrado was contacted by producers from Sirens Media, a Maryland-based company that has produced “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” and dozens of other shows.
“Our researchers were looking for stories of heroism, people saving other people, and we came across the Carnegie Hero awards and found her story,” said David Erickson.
Erickson is Co-Executive Producer and Showrunner for a new Sirens series called “Saved,” which is based on a similar series from Great Britain. The show tells the stories of people whose lives were saved by others, using reenactments and first person interviews when possible, and Corrado and her rescue will be featured in an episode of the show called “Drowning.”
“This is a show that we all loved working on, we thought Katie was great, and we hope it airs soon,” said Erickson.
The show had been scheduled to appear on MSNBC during the last week in February, but the air date has now been pushed back indefinitely due to ongoing political coverage. Corrado, who now lives in Towamencin, said her appearance involved a trip to Center City Philadelphia for a filmed segment, and interviews in Fischer’s Park in Towamencin last spring, as she recalled the rescue and how it has changed her life.
“I’ve always liked helping people when I was a kid, but this was a very formative experience. I’ve always come back to this in my life,” she said.
None of her various marketing jobs ever felt like her full time calling, so last year — at 32, now married and with a son — Corrado enrolled in nursing courses at Montgomery County Community College, and plans to make caring for others her full time career.
“This is the first time I feel like I’m going to be doing my right job, for my whole life. I’m stoked, because I started working when I was 13 years old, and it’s been 20 years of just paying the bills, punching the clock...but this doesn’t feel like that.”
“In one of our nursing classes, one of the instructors said to us, ‘Does anybody feel like you have a calling to go into nursing?’ And I do.”