Jameson Lobb, a 24-year-old investment banker from Toronto, was just one week into his new job on Wall Street. Over the past month, he'd been settling in to the New York City apartment he was sharing with his college buddy, an artificial intelligence engineer named Raphael Jafri.
Now, on Oct. 4, 2021, the two were squeezing in a lunchtime workout on Pier（码头） 15. overlooking the East River, when Lobb froze. "Somebody's in the water," he said. Before Jafri could respond, Lobb climbed over the rail at the edge of the pier and leaped into the cold, polluted water without taking the time to remove his shoes.
Jafri didn't need to see the victim. Maybe Lobb saw someone in the water who needs our help, he thought. Or maybe it's Lobb who needs my help. Either way, I'm going in. He took off his shoes and swan-dived.
Approaching the unconscious victim, Lobb saw that it was a middle-aged man. When at last they reached Pier 15, they faced a new uncertainty. How-to get out? On the pier, a crowd had gathered. From somewhere, the onlookers produced a rope and a life preserver（救生圈）, which they threw to Jafri and Lobb. With the two men pushing from below and the crowd pulling from above, the man's dangling body slowly rose until helping hands pulled him onto the pier.
From the metal beam 梁）, Lobb climbed up onto the pier, but Jafri remained in the water a few minutes more, until he was rescued by the Coast Guard. Both men, Jafn in particular, thoroughly exhausted from 15-plus minutes in the water and bleeding from numerous barnacle cuts, watched as rescue workers loaded the nearly drowned man into an ambulance and drove away.
In place of that knowledge, they have a story they get to tell now, another experience that has further enhanced their bond. Lots of people were on the piers that day, yet only the two of them jumped in the water — because, they say, they were the fittest people there and, so, had a moral responsibility.
"If I know I'm capable," Lobb says, "why wouldn't I help?" Jafri adds, laughing, "Peoplealways say‘If your friend jumps off a cliff, are you jumping?' I think I answered that one."
