By Phil Corso
Police were investigating why a woman’s body was found floating in Little Bay Tuesday morning near Fort Totten, the Police Department said.
Witnesses described her as made-up with finely manicured hands and dressed in regular street clothing with no explicit signs of injury.
According to officials, FDNY’s Marine 4 unit removed the young woman’s body from the water and tried reviving her with CPR, to no avail. Police did not identify the woman by press time and said the exact cause of the woman’s death was unclear.
Two witnesses said the unidentified woman was found floating face down in the water near an FDNY water rescue training facility around 10:15 a.m. Hussein Sayed, 22, said he was walking near the water with Kareem Kamboj, 22, when the men discovered the young woman’s body.
The two sat on the ground with looks of disbelief on their faces and watched as officers carried the body out of the water.
“She had no movement. You could tell she was dead,” Sayed said. “It really makes you look at your own life and think.”
Though police said the woman could have been between 20 and 30 years old, the two witnesses described her as young, around 22 and possibly of Indian descent. They alerted FDNY officials training nearby, who rushed to the water and tried to revive the unidentified woman.
“They thought there might have been a chance she was still alive,” Kamboj said of the rescue workers.
Bystanders gathered just outside Little Bay Park, where NYPD officers and detectives investigated the scene. Meanwhile, the FDNY training exercises continued with red rescue boats propelling into Little Bay.
Sayed and Hussein said they did not immediately notice signs of trauma on the woman, who had makeup on her face, painted fingernails and car keys on her body when she was found. While walking along the water, they noticed the woman’s motionless body floating face down and acted immediately.
“It is a pretty emotional thing for me,” said Sayed, who walks along the water in Fort Totten often. “This isn’t what you would expect to happen. It’s just something you can’t explain.”
Reach reporter Phil Corso by e-mail at pcorso@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-45
