It was a warm June evening on Long Island, and 17-year-old Anthony Zhongor sat in his car parked along a quiet dock. It was late, nearly 10 PM, the kind of night when the water lay still and the world seemed to pause. But in an instant, that calm was shattered.
Another car suddenly veered forward and plunged off the dock. The sound of tires skidding against wood, followed by the violent splash, jolted Anthony out of his seat. He ran to the edge, his heart pounding, and saw the vehicle already sinking. Inside, a figure frantically pounded against the door, trapped.
“She went pretty deep in there,” Anthony later recalled. “She was hitting the door and trying to break the window, and that really made me nervous and scared for her.”
There was no time to waste. He tore off his clothes, dove into the dark water, and swam toward the drowning car.
When he reached it, the situation was worse than he imagined. The doors wouldn’t budge under the pressure, and the driver’s panic grew. Thinking quickly, Anthony came up with a plan. He swam to the front, shoved down the nose of the car with all his strength, and forced the rear of the vehicle to rise above the surface.
The tailgate clicked open. Water rushed in. And at that moment, the driver — 18-year-old Mia Samolinski — scrambled free. Together, they swam back to shore, the cold water heavy on their bodies, but the air never sweeter when they finally surfaced and touched ground.
“She just came up to me and said, ‘Oh my God, thank you,’ and was crying,” Anthony remembered. For him, the choice had been simple. “It didn’t matter who it was; I couldn’t just stand by and watch someone suffer like that.”
Mia had mistakenly pressed the gas pedal instead of the brake, sending her car plunging into the bay. By sheer chance, Anthony had been there to see it happen. By sheer courage, he had acted.
The two shared more than that terrifying night — though they hadn’t known each other, they were classmates at the same high school. Anthony graduated just days later, carrying not only his diploma but the weight of a life saved. Soon after, he signed up for the Marines.
His recruiter summed it up best: “Zhongor’s selflessness and quick thinking really show the kind of person we look for to earn the title Marine.”
One teenager’s split-second decision turned what could have been a tragedy into a story of survival — and revealed the heart of a hero ready to serve.
