Don't call him a hero Pine Island Chamber will honor man who saved a woman’s life during last year's flood

PINE ISLAND — Retired utility worker Paul Kulik of Pine Island will be recognized by the Pine Island Chamber of Commerce for saving the life of a woman when her car was swept off Country Route 1 and sank in ten feet of flood water after Hurricane Irene last year.
“I cannot swim,” Dolores Weslowski of Warwick said in the chamber’s press release announcing the award. “If it weren’t for him, I’d be dead. He saved my life.”
Kulik will get a certificate of appreciation for heroism at the chamber’s annual social at the Polish Legion on Sunday, Oct. 28.
Kulik recalled hearing screams for help in the afternoon of Aug. 29, 2011. He looked up and saw a woman leaning out of a car that had been washed 100 yards off County Route 1 into the Black Dirt field beside his Merritt’s Island home.

Car swept away

The car was rapidly sinking.
He rushed to the barn where he keeps a ten-foot aluminum boat he uses for duck hunting and dragged it across the lawn and into the water. Then Kulik rowed as fast as he could to the half submerged car.
Weslowski, a senior citizen, was leaning out of the window as water submerged the seats.
“I brought the boat right up and pulled her forward into the boat,” Kulik said. “She was shaking.
“Just then her pocketbook washed out the window, so I rowed over and got it. By the time I’d gone around the car the water was up to the roof.”
Kulik rowed Weslowski back to land and sat her down under a blanket until the Pine Island Fire Department arrived and took her home.
Weslowski said that she doesn’t like to think back to the incident let alone talk about it. “It was a clear day and I was driving along behind a truck and didn’t see how deep the flood waters were. There were no barriers up yet.”
The heavy truck forged through the water, but Weslowski’s compact Honda was swept off the road and the current took it deep into the farm field.

Just a cake

“I can’t remember how I got into his boat,” she said. “I just remember Paul warning me to be careful because it could tip over.”
Weslowski says she was so grateful to Kulik she sent him some money but he returned it.
“The only thing he said I could do was bake something for him. So every now and then I bake him a cake.”
Kulik was also reluctant to talk about the event, or to be considered a hero. But he does like the cakes Weslowski brings him.

Essential information

Kulik will be honored by the Chamber, along with Pine Island Citizen of the Year Dave Dudlo, Youth Citizen Achievement Award winners Christina Carmody and Michael Fox and Ed Sobiech, CEO of Green Valley Onion Company, who will receive a certificate of appreciation for humanitarian outreach.

The public is invited to attend the annual social, which will be held from 4-7 p.m., Sunday Oct. 28. Tickets at $25 a person include canapés, a cash bar, live music and a chance to win a painting or photo by a local artist.
For reservations, call 845-258-1469, or e-mail chamber@pineislandny.com.
The deadline is Oct. 19.