I reached Carl Lucas of South Kingstown not far from where he rescued Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger on that January day captured in the new Tom Hanks movie.

Lucas, who now works on tugboats out of New York, told me of a Rhode Island connection with the incident I’d never known about.

Sully and 18 of his passengers and crew were pulled from the freezing water by the Block Island ferry Athena.

It was leased that winter doing Manhattan commuter routes and was one of the first boats to reach the downed plane. Lucas, now 42, was at the helm while his fellow Rhode Island captain, David Martin, 32, a Narragansett native, ran the rescue.

I caught Lucas by phone last week at a Staten Island dock — he now works on tugboats that push oil barges to ports like Providence and Boston. But he was full-time with the Block Island Ferry for 10 years, and still captains occasional trips out of Point Judith when he's home.

At 3:25 p.m. on Jan. 15, 2009, as Sullenberger’s US Airways flight lifted off from LaGuardia, the Athena was tied up on the Hudson, fueling up for its evening commuter trips back to Jersey.

Six minutes later, the crew was having coffee when an engineer named John Verissimo of New Bedford suddenly said a plane was in the river. It was 20 degrees out.

Lucas was stunned to see it was true — a plane was down hundreds of yards away. He watched in disbelief as the fuselage doors opened and dozens of passengers straggled onto the slightly-submerged wings.

Lucas and Martin looked at each other.

“We have to get out there,” said Martin.

The two had been alternating the captain’s job, and today was Lucas’s turn. He ran up to the wheelhouse while the others threw off lines and began getting a 10-foot rescue ladder on a block and tackle.

Neither captain had experienced a live rescue, but for years both had done monthly man-overboard drills. It paid off. Everyone knew what to do.

The Athena has high-speed engines but Lucas worried a wake could knock people off the wings so he went in slow.

By the time they got there, other ferries were arriving and starting rescues.

But Lucas saw that one of the big inflatable slides — now doubling as a raft — had freed itself and was being pushed away by strong currents.

Lucas was used to tricky Hudson waters. He maneuvered his port side against the raft to hold it. It was sloshing with water and most aboard were lightly dressed. Some had facial cuts from the hard landing.

The moment the ladder was down, many rushed it. If anyone fell in, Lucas knew he’d have to break free to do an in-water rescue.

He called down from the wheelhouse.

“Please,” he said. “You’re all going to be fine. One at a time.”

It worked.

There were 19 in the raft about 10 feet below deck, including the flight crew and a pilot with white hair. Passengers began to climb up and were quickly taken to the warm passenger area.

The movie shows the same scene but with a New York-based ferry and captain. The actual rescue of those on Sully’s raft was by the Athena and the Rhode Island-led crew.

Pretty soon, Sully was the last one on the raft, still looking back at the nearby plane to make sure all were off it. By now, boats were everywhere and Lucas worried about a collision. He called down to Sully.

“Look, sir — I need you to get out of the raft.”

It got Sully’s attention, but there was a problem.

“I don’t know I can,” Sully said. “My hands are a little frozen.”

He also had a clipboard with him — the passenger manifest.

He managed a few steps up the ladder, then Capt. Martin and Verissimo pulled him on deck.

Inside, the Athena crew handed out blankets and even their own coats. Martin gave his sweatshirt — with the name of his father-in-law’s plumbing company on it — to a shivering young man.

Lucas asked for the white-haired pilot to be brought to the wheelhouse.

Sully arrived soaking wet, still with a life jacket on and clipboard in hand. It was the passenger manifest. He told Lucas 155 souls had been aboard.

“Okay sir,” Lucas said to Sully, “that’s all I need.”

Lucas passed on the count to the Coast Guard and other ferry captains, and all compared numbers.

“I got 19,” Lucas remembers saying repeatedly, “how many do you have?”

Pretty quickly, they confirmed everyone accounted for.

Satisfied, Lucas went full speed to the West 39th St. ferry terminal, where EMT crews were waiting.

But as the rescued passengers filed off, 20 firefighters came aboard.

“This boat is commandeered by the City of New York Fire Department,” one told Lucas, “and you need to take us out to that plane right now.” They wanted to be sure no one was still out there.

The Athena motored by the drifting plane another hour until it half-sank near Wall Street.

At that, Lucas and crew went right back to work to take commuters home to New Jersey.

A year later, during an anniversary gathering of survivors, a young man asked to meet David Martin and returned the sweatshirt, saying he'd never forget that final gesture.

As of last week, neither Rhode Island captain had seen the movie — their schedules have been too busy, with Lucas pushing barges up and down the coast and Martin now captaining the Statue of Liberty ferry. That, they explained, is how the profession goes.

Indeed, as I continued our phone interview, Carl Lucas apologized and said he had to sign off. His tugboat crew was waiting.

It was time to go back to work.

—mpatinki@providencejournal.com

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