A call, a fall, a rescuer answers

A man jumps into the bay, pulls a girl who had fallen into the water to safety and disappears during Ribfest.

By TOM ZUCCO, Times Staff Writer

© St. Petersburg Times
published November 12, 2002

ST. PETERSBURG -- Stephanie Holler was two digits away from reaching her mother. It was Saturday night at Vinoy Park in St. Petersburg, it was dark and she was looking down at her cell phone. And not paying attention to where she was walking.

In an instant, the 12-year-old was underwater. She had accidentally stepped off a sea wall and into Tampa Bay. The black water was several feet over her head, and the concrete sea wall was too steep and high to climb. There was no way out.

She screamed for help. But Ribfest was in full swing, and the bands performing nearby overwhelmed her cries.

She heard a splash. It was a man in his 20s or 30s with short hair. He calmed Stephanie down, put his arm around her and started towing her toward the closest object -- the boats anchored offshore.

Within minutes, someone on one of the boats spotted them and moved in close enough to pick them up. Wrapped in towels, the two were taken to shore, where police contacted the family friends who had brought Stephanie to the park.

"I was trying to look at the phone and just wasn't paying attention," Stephanie said Monday. "I have a few scratches on my stomach and on my fingers from trying to climb out, but other than that, I'm okay."

[Times photo: Chris Zuppa] Stephanie Holler, 12, of St. Petersburg fiddled with a cell phone as she traipsed across a sea wall at Ribfest on Saturday night in St. Petersburg's Vinoy Park. Her inattentiveness led her to topple off the wall into Tampa Bay. A man jumped in after her and pulled her to a boat.

The man who rescued Stephanie made certain she was all right and then melted into the crowd. She never got his name.

Astrid Holler, Stephanie's mom, wants the man to know how grateful she is, how he helped restore her faith in people and how special her daughter is.

She said Stephanie's birth mother cannot be located, and her father, Astrid's brother, died of cancer in 1991 when Stephanie was almost 2. So Astrid adopted her niece, and they became mother and daughter.

"I just want to give him a big hug," said Astrid, a single mother who works for an employment service company. "It might sound corny, but it's important to me. You always hope somebody will do something for your kids if they're in trouble ..." Her voice trailed off, and she added, "I'd be lost without her."

In the meantime, Stephanie will have to babysit and mow lawns to earn money to replace the cell phone that is lying somewhere in the bay. And she'll have to add to her wardrobe.

"I guess I'm a big klutz," admitted the John Hopkins Middle School seventh-grader. "I'm usually walking into things. Not off of things.

"Now I'm not allowed out of the house without a helmet. I went to climb a tree yesterday, and I had to wear a helmet."

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