A New Jersey police chief is being honored after a Delaware River rescue that the woman he pulled from the water says saved her life.

According to reporting by Suzanne Russell for MyCentralJersey.com, Lebanon Township Police Chief Jason Cronce will be honored by the 200 Club of Hunterdon County after rescuing Kathy Van Duyne during a tubing trip on Aug. 17, 2025.

MyCentralJersey reported that Cronce was floating the Delaware River with a group of about 20 people when Van Duyne hit a fallen tree at a bend in the river. Her tube popped up, but she did not immediately resurface.

Cronce told the outlet that he pushed off the tree and was pulled underwater by the current. He later learned that low water from drought conditions had made the current faster and stronger.

Van Duyne wrote in a letter to the Lebanon Township Committee that the impact flipped her, slammed her back into the tree, and pulled her underwater, according to the report. She wrote that Cronce’s quick thinking, strength, and selflessness saved her life.

Cronce said the rescue was instinctive. “When I felt her, I just pulled. I didn’t realize she was stuck,” he told MyCentralJersey.

About 35 feet downstream, the water calmed, and Cronce and his brother-in-law got Van Duyne onto a raft and then to shore, the report said. Cronce suffered bruises to his head, back, hand, and toe during the rescue.

Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee M. Robeson called the rescue “an extraordinary act of courage” in a Facebook post quoted by MyCentralJersey, saying Cronce’s selflessness and quick response reflected the best of public service.

Cronce told the outlet he does not consider himself a hero, saying he was “just in the right place at the right time.” Van Duyne sees it differently, he said: every time she sees him, she calls him her hero.

The 200 Club of Hunterdon County’s Valor and Merit Awards banquet also recognizes other first responders and citizens who risk their lives to save others. For ThinBlueNews readers, Cronce’s story is a reminder that off-duty courage can look like one person stepping into dangerous water when someone else cannot get free.

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ThinBlueNews will update this story if additional official information becomes available.