COLLEGE POINT, Queens (WABC) -- A Sunday in Queens turned into a harrowing moment, but thankfully two lives were saved at the end.

It happened at Hermon MacNeal Park in College Point as volunteers were getting ready for a parade and a festival when bystanders started shouting. A woman reportedly took her baby and started walking into the East River.

Retired police officer Paul Pinsdorf was setting up in the park and heard the cries. He ran to the water's edge to see who needed help.

"I saw the woman in the water with the baby. We called 911. I went in the water, she resisted me -- her mind was lost," Pinsdorf said.

Authorities suspect the distraught woman was trying to drown herself and her five-month-old baby girl.

The hero soon became her lifeline -- there was not a second to waste

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