Photo credit Rocco Cichetti: Ivan Mancheno, Rocco Cicchetti and Samuel Fontanez, left to right. Mancheno and Fontanez rushed out in the storm on Sept. 1 to save Cicchetti, after he had fallen in the floodwaters on Continental Avenue.

Two Belleville men who saved an 81-year-old man from drowning in the surging flood waters from Hurricane Ida will be honored for heroism.

Samuel Fontanez and Ivan Mancheno will be recognized with a proclamation at the Tuesday, Sept. 28, 2021 Township Council meeting.
The neighbors and close friends rushed from their nearby homes to save Rocco Cicchetti, 81, after he had slipped under the knee-high waters and could not get to his feet.

Fontanez and Mancheno grabbed him up out of the water and carried him to the safety of some nearby steps, so he could regain his breath.
Then, they walked him to his home on Fairway Avenue in the drenching rains.

“They were truly lifesavers,” said Cicchetti’s daughter, Gia Stansci. “If they weren't there, he would have definitely drowned because of the force of the water. Being that he's older, he couldn’t get himself up. He went under like three times. Then he wasn’t able to get up.

“I truly believe that it was because of those two guys that my dad is still with us today,” she added. “They saved his life.”

Cicchetti, a grandfather of two, was returning home after working his shift at the deli counter at a supermarket in Nutley.

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