FDNY; Barry Williams / New York Daily News
Off-duty Firefighter Travis Langan rescues Brooklyn public school principal Carmen Pinto from her car during a flash flood on the Jackie Robinson Parkway on Wednesday (left). On Friday, Langan and Pinto reunite at FDNY Headquarters in Brooklyn (right). (FDNY; Barry Williams / New York Daily News)
A hero firefighter was reunited Friday with a desperate driver he saved days earlier when floodwaters filled her car on a crowded Queens parkway.
Off-duty Firefighter Travis Langan was driving home Wednesday when he came across several cars stuck in rising water along the Jackie Robinson Parkway. He noticed that one driver was trapped in a car where the water was so high that the vehicle was almost completely submerged.
The quick-thinking Langan waded into the chest-high water, climbed atop the car, smashed out the skylight and pulled the woman to safety.
“I am so happy and so blessed that I was sent an angel,” said Brooklyn school principal Carmen Pinto. “I was about to drown in a trapped vehicle, and without thinking of his own well-being, he punched a hole in my roof and rescued me. And today I get to see the Knicks. Yes, I get, I get to go back to my school community in Bed-Stuy.”
Carmen Pinto (center) describes being trapped by flood waters and being rescued by FDNY Firefighter Travis Langan (right) as FDNY Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore looks on during a press conference at FDNY Headquarters Friday, May 22, 2026, in Brooklyn, New York. (Barry Williams/ New York Daily News)
Pinto said she was driving home on the narrow, winding parkway when she saw a huge puddle that seemed to keep growing.
“Within seconds the water rose,” she said. “And then six vehicles, mine included, started floating, and that’s when panic really set in.”
As she sat helplessly, her electricity powered Tesla shut down. She couldn’t operate the doors or the windows, and she said her calls to 911 were not going through. By the time she did reach an emergency dispatcher, she said the water was at her chest.
She said she was banging on the sunroof with a metal water bottle. Then, suddenly Langan appeared out of nowhere, like an Avenger from a superhero film.
“Then he just started pounding, you know, bare fist, and I was like, ‘Oh, my God, he’s going to hurt his hands,’” Pinto said. “I really think that I was seconds from drowning, if it wasn’t for Travis pulling me out of that situation. I thought I was going to die.”
Langan said he was on the phone with his father, while exiting onto the Grand Central Parkway when he spotted the submerged cars.
“I saw people getting out on the roofs, and I said, ‘Dad, I got to give you a call back,’” Langan said.
“I hopped on her roof, and I saw her face pressed up against the sunroof, and I just started punching, punching my way through.”
FDNY Firefighter Travis Langan shows his injured hand from breaking the sunroof of Carmen Pinto’s vehicle during a press conference at FDNY Headquarters Friday, May 22, 2026, in Brooklyn, New York. (Barry Williams/ New York Daily News)
When the hole was big enough, Pinto passed him the metal water bottle, and he banged away some more until he was able to get a grip and tear away the glass.
“I said, ‘Calm down, ma’am, I’m here. It’s OK.’ ”
And it was.
“I didn’t want her to drown,” he said.
FDNY firefighter Travis Langan (right) describes rescuing Carmen Pinto (far left) as FDNY Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore and Mayor Zohran Mamdani listen at FDNY headquarters Friday, May 22, 2026 in Brooklyn, New York. (Barry Williams/ New York Daily News)
Pinto, the principal of Brooklyn’s PS 81, the Thaddeus Stevens Elementary School, was reunited with her superhero at FDNY Headquarters in Brooklyn, where she couldn’t stop singing his praises. She said Langan’s pregnant wife and daughters have a lot to be proud of.
“I’m proud that Spider-Man is from Queens,” she said. “But now he’s got competition.”
Langan also received high praise from Fire Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore and Mayor Mamdani.
Carmen Pinto wipes away a tear while describing being trapped in her car by floodwaters during a press conference at FDNY Headquarters Friday, May 22, 2026 in Brooklyn, New York. (Barry Williams/ New York Daily News)
Mamdani said the storm that hit New York City that day dumped 2 inches of rain in less than an hour.
He said “off-duty” didn’t mean a thing to Langan.
“Travis didn’t hesitate,” Mamdani said. “Carmen is with us today, safe and dry in her favorite Jalen Brunson T-shirt.”
Langan, a firefighter with Ladder 123 in Crown Heights, walked away with a bloodied hand. The firefighter, who was wearing Crocs that day, said he wished he had been a little more prepared. He didn’t even have the clogs’ straps flipped back around his heel in so-called “sport mode,” but instead forward in “relaxed mode.”
“I forgot to do laundry at the firehouse that day, and I didn’t have socks,” Langan said. “I didn’t even put them in sport mode, you know what I mean?”
