The wife of a man killed in a Brooklyn boating crash recalled her attempts to pull her husband back aboard — after she regained consciousness herself.
“I was the one who took him from the water,” Radik Galeev’s widow Tatsiana Rymasheuskaya said Monday from a hospital bed, where she was being treated for the injuries she suffered in the crash.
Galeev, Rymasheuskaya and a friend of theirs were spending the morning on the water in Gerritsen Creek when they crashed into a vessel operated by a 68-year-old man near Avenue X around 11:50 a.m. Saturday, police said.
“Nobody saw that boat,” the widow said. “It was all of a sudden, it came out of nowhere.”
Both she and Galeev lost consciousness as the husband fell into the water.
Rymasheuskaya doesn’t know how long she was out but said when she came to, FDNY and NYPD first responders were already there.
“When I opened my eyes his half body was in the boat,” she said of her husband. “His head was inside the water. I tried to take him out but he was so heavy and wet.
“He didn’t respond to me,” she added.
First responders performed CPR on Galeev before rushing him to South Brooklyn Health, but he could not be saved, dying around 1:05 p.m., police said.
Medics brought Rymasheuskaya and the couple’s friend to the same hospital, where she was still being treated Monday for a kidney injury with internal bleeding.
The operator of the other craft was treated at the scene for minor injuries, said cops.
Rymasheuskaya’s voice shook as she described her husband as a kind, honest man who loved nature and was “a best friend” to many people. The couple met in 2000.
“He was the best husband, very loving. He loved his family, open-minded,” she said. “He’s originally from Europe, from Russia. His mom is 83 years old, she is crying that she lost her son.”
Galeev came to the United States in 1991, said his wife, and owned a moving company where he not only ran the business but performed the physical labor alongside his employees.
“This is very hard job, to move heavy and old furniture,” she said. “He would give out of his pocket if the client didn’t give tips to his workers, to be honest, to be fair.”
Galeev is also survived by a daughter.
“He was a very loving father,” said Rymasheuskaya. “She was everything for him.”
“My father’s unwavering support and encouragement have always been my guiding light as I pursue my career aspirations in healthcare. Radik was a man who embodied kindness, positivity and an unwavering spirit,” Alexsandra Galeev wrote in an online fundraiser for her father’s funeral expenses and to support his widow.
Rymasheuskaya said Galeev was athletic, and that’s part of why his death came as such a blow.
“He liked to go to the beach, swimming, camping, fishing in the fresh water or ocean,” she said. “This is such a stupid death because he is a very good swimmer. He is a scuba diver.
“I’m totally in stress and shock,” she added as she lamented being stuck in a hospital bed. “I can’t even take care of his funeral.”
With Rocco Parascandola
