By Carl Prine
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, September 20, 2004
From entry: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/s_252991.html
Dennis Santiago’s grief-stricken family kept a sleepless vigil Sunday, praying for rescuers to find the Carnegie man who tumbled into the turbulent swirl of Chartiers Creek.
“I’ve got a feeling in my heart that he’s alive,” said Santiago’s mother, Gloria Cruz, who rushed from Erie to Bellevue to join other family members in awaiting any news about him. “A mother knows.”
Authorities believe Santiago, 35, drowned after he lost his grip on a tree and slipped into the swirling floodwaters at 5 a.m. Saturday.
But his body still had not been found yesterday, and his family still had not given up hope. His would be the only death in Allegheny County directly related to Friday’s flooding.
Firefighters and National Guardsmen early Saturday attempted to rescue a man matching Santiago’s description — about 5 feet 8, 150 pounds, with dark hair and brown eyes. They repeatedly tried to coax the frightened and bone-tired man into bobbing rescue rafts, at one point attempting to cast a last-ditch lifeline to him before he slumped into the waters and disappeared from sight.
But Santiago was a champion swimmer and a bull-strong weight lifter who spent hours every night at the Club Julian Gym in McCandless.
“He could swim like a dolphin,” said Cindy Germaine, who took Santiago into her Bellevue home 20 years ago when he started high school at the Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf. “I remember one time watching him swim in water during a storm, and everyone else was terrified but he wasn’t. He was a wonderful swimmer.”
Santiago’s family originally is from the tiny village of Utucado, Puerto Rico. His parents settled in Erie before he was born.
Since he was 15, Santiago has lived around Pittsburgh, first in Bellevue and later in Carnegie, near his longtime employer, Vital Records, where he was laid off nearly a year ago. He was hoping to be rehired soon, once the economy improved.
He frequently attended a special Catholic Mass for the deaf at St. Justin’s Church on Boggs Avenue in Mt. Washington, but wasn’t there yesterday.
Santiago’s hearing-impaired girlfriend, Dee Oberle, of Carnegie, recalled having an online conversation with him Friday afternoon. On the Web cam, he was seen wearing blue jeans and a white T-shirt.
Oberle believes Santiago left for Club Julian around 2 p.m. Friday to meet a lifting partner named Mike. The men planned to eat dinner at a nearby Babcock Boulevard restaurant, and Santiago then was to drive back to his Lincoln Street duplex in Carnegie that evening, Oberle said.
Police have not located Santiago’s dark blue 2002 Ford Focus with Tasmanian Devil decals on the back and side windows. Santiago has a scar running up his chest from childhood heart surgery and a gold stud in his left ear.
Police said that because he couldn’t hear weather warnings on the radio, he might not have realized Carnegie was under a deadly deluge of water.
Concerned about her foster son as the record rain pounded the region, Germaine sent Santiago a text message Friday warning him to “not go out.” But she doesn’t know if he received it.
Germaine describes Santiago as a “survivor” by nature, who overcame a handicap to thrive as a happy, affable man beloved by hundreds of the deaf throughout the region.
If he’s seen alive, Germaine cautions rescuers that his speech is very garbled, and he might be disoriented from the flood.
“He can read lips, and he can sign,” said Germaine. “If you write stuff down, he can read it, so please do that. We just want to find our son. That’s all.”
Carl Prine can be reached at cprine@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7826.