A Mother's Anguish Resonates in Town Hall

This article was posted by Leah Bush. It was written by Joe Dowd.

The Town of Oyster Bay accepted a gift that one day may save the life of a child like Harlie Treanor.

The little girl's mother came to Town Hall Tuesday and brought it to tears:

"That night, I gave my daughter a kiss and put her hair in a pony tail," Joy Treanor told the town board. "And to have a cop come to my house and say 'there's been an accident, and to then go to the hospital and beg her not to go.

"I don't want anyone to have to ever go through that," she said.

Neither does the town's Bay Constable Benevolent Association, which donated $50,000 for the town to form an emergency response dive team and purchase enough diving equipment to outfit 10 bay constables.

The driving force behind the donation is Bay Constable Christopher Briggs, the organization's president and a trained rescue diver. He accompanied Harlie's mother to Tuesday's meeting.

Briggs is passionate about the cause, in part because he wasn't working the night of July 4 last year, the first Independence Day he had off in years.

While bay constables and others were on the scene of the tragedy on Oyster Bay that night, Briggs wasn't there to dive on the sinking wreck of the Kandi Won. The yacht capsized with 27 aboard at the conclusion of a fireworks display. No charges resulted following a police probe into the incident.

Harlie Treanor was one of the three children who died that night, along with Victoria Gaines and David Aureliano.

The constables are, in most cases, "the first on scene when a call for drowning or boating accident occurs, Briggs said. "Having a diver with rapid response diving equipment would allow for the quick immersion into the water to search and potentially rescue victims."

Joy Treanor was among those who were surprised to learn most constables were not trained divers. In fact, a U.S. Coast Guard vessel that responded to the initial distress call did not have divers aboard, she said.

"I'm not passing blame here," she told a hushed town hall. "Harley was the first one to be pulled out and it took two hours to rescue her. Two hours? How is that possible?"

And she went on: "Before her wake I did her nails and her hair because I knew it was the last time I'd ever be able to do that for her."

Harlie's cousins produced a video about their lost loved one. Board members watched and were visibly shaken by it. Others in town hall wept at the children's descriptions of the tragedy.

Briggs and others are willing to provide training and work with others towns to get more rescue divers on the waters off Long Island. Some details are still being worked out, town officials said.