By Courtney Dentch
St. Albans resident Harold Dickerson died as he lived: a hero and a family man.
Dickerson, of 114-40 175th St. was an avid swimmer, but he could not fight the Rockaway Beach current that pulled him into the ocean Saturday evening as he saved his son-in-law from being swept out to sea, said his wife, Mary Ann. He was 69.
“You can’t go against Mother Nature,” she said. “Mother Nature does not play.”
Dickerson, who went by the nickname “Pete,” took his wife, daughter, son-in-law and grandson to the beach Saturday afternoon, Mary Ann Dickerson said. He drowned at 6:50 p.m. off Beach 19th Street in Far Rockaway, the same section of the beach where three girls from New Jersey were swept away last July.
“He’s been going to that exact spot for 20 or 30 years,” Mary Ann Dickerson said. “That’s where he brings his family to swim.”
A teacher’s aide at Martin Van Buren High School in Queens Village, Dickerson was wading in the surf with his son-in-law, Craig Stevens, when a riptide grabbed Stevens, who cannot swim, police said. Dickerson helped Stevens up, but was quickly caught in the current himself, police said.
“He acted in the spirit of the moment and he saved me,” Stevens said Monday.
Police and Coast Guard divers were still looking for Dickerson’s body Tuesday evening. The beach was unsupervised when Dickerson was pulled into the water after the lifeguards’ shift had ended at 6 p.m., police said.
“It’s devastating, just sitting around waiting,” she said. “The main thing is just that they find his body. I want to go down there and pray and ask God to please bring him up.”
Mary Ann Dickerson described her husband as her best friend and an athletic man. Dickerson taught beginners swim classes, and worked with children at the Big Apple Games and the Police Athletic League. He also played tennis and golf.
Dickerson was popular with his pupils, as well as with the students at Martin Van Buren High School, and often received small gifts from them, including arts and crafts projects, Mary Ann Dickerson said.
“If you knew the amount of Christmas cards he got from these children every year,” she said.
But through her grief, Mary Ann Dickerson is angry, saying the city should have shut down the beach after the three girls were lost last year.
“That beach should be closed,” she said. “Enough lives have been lost. How many lives have to be lost before they do something serious?”
The city’s beaches are staffed by lifeguards from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, and patrolled by Parks Department police after hours. More than 300 signs, posted in several languages, also warn bathers of the strong currents and sudden dropoffs, said Adrian Benepe, city Parks commissioner.
“Rivers and oceans surrounding New York City are dangerous at all times, even when guarded by the city’s more than 500 beach lifeguards, and are particularly dangerous to swim in when unguarded,” Benepe said in a statement. “Despite these considerable safeguards nothing can replace personal responsibility, common sense and vigilance. No one should enter a water body at any time that is not protected by lifeguards.”
But Dickerson’s neighbor said the man showed responsibility in his final moments.
“He was a hero,” said John Smith, who lives across the street from the Dickerson home. “Not too many people would give up their life to save someone else. That was the essence of his character.”
Reach reporter Courtney Dentch by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com, or by phone at 229-0300, Ext. 138.
