"It Was A Nightmare To Watch"

"NEW YORK, NY - A woman clutching her 19-month-old daughter plunged into the chilly Hudson River in a murder-suicide bid after a fight with her husband Tuesday morning, authorities said.

"The child was alive but unconscious and unresponsive when police found her bobbing in the water off the West Side of Manhattan shortly after 11:30 a.m.

"`She was pretty cold,` said Mike Skonberg of the NYPD Harbor Unit. `It was pretty alarming ... She wasn't responding at all.`

"Her mother was `conscious but incoherent,` said FDNY Battalion 11 Chief Robert Holzmaier.

"According to police, the little girl's 34-year-old mother put her in a stroller and bolted for the pier at W. 70th St. after an argument with her husband.

"`She says she was going to take the baby back to India, and she jumped in the water,` a police source said.

"The woman climbed over a waist-high fence, carrying the child, before jumping off the pier into the fast-moving current.

"Rescuers arrived within two minutes to find the parent and child floating about 40 feet apart and about 10 blocks south as witnesses stared in horror.

"`It was a nightmare to watch,` said eyewitness Lane Deuachmat, 43,, who lives in the neighborhood.

"`You could see them bobbing down in the water, and they started to go under.`

"As police rescued the child, the mother was pulled from the water by firefighters.

"The toddler was on a ventilator at New York Presbyterian Hospital, a police source said. The mother was brought to the same facility.

"The father arrived at the pier shortly after his wife leaped into the river, and was taken away by police at the scene."

From the New York Daily News...