Missing Teacher Fished Out of Harbor

A missing 23-year-old teacher was rescued by a passing ferry captain.

ByABC News
September 9, 2008, 1:36 PM

Sept. 16, 2008 — -- A 23-year-old teacher who had been missing since last month was fished out of New York Harbor today, alive, after she jumped off a pier, police told ABCNews.com.

Hannah Upp, a New York teacher who disappeared just days before school started, was rescued by a Staten Island Ferry captain who saw her in the water, police said.

"The captain was docking the ferry at Staten Island and he noticed something floating," a New York Police Department spokeswoman said.

The woman told the captain that she was the missing teacher, the spokeswoman said.

Upp was taken to Richmond Hospital in Staten Island, N.Y., where she was in good condition. Police said they did not know whether this was a suicide attempt.

"We don't know. We're still trying to figure it out," the NYPD spokeswoman said.

Upp, a second-year Spanish teacher at Thurgood Marshall Academy in Harlem, went missing Friday afternoon, Aug. 29, after she was last seen by a friend in her apartment.

"It has been a long two weeks for all of us since she was declared missing, and we are overjoyed that she has been found," the woman's brother, Dan "Wally" Upp, wrote in an e-mail to ABCNews.com from Japan where he is stationed with the Navy.

A teachers' union and the New York Police Department were offering cash rewards for help in finding her.

Until last week, when Upp was spotted in midtown New York, her fate was a mystery to a frantic army of her family and friends.

At the time, the woman's brother said the sighting was a huge encouragement to friends and family.

"We just want her back safe, and we are waiting to welcome her home with open arms and open hearts with no judgment, no matter what," her brother said.

The Portland, Ore., native's friends launched a massive search following her disappearance.

During her disappearance, Upp's distraught mother, Barbara Bellus, was keeping a vigil in her daughter's apartment.

"She is a bright, beautiful young woman and a dedicated teacher, who has so much to offer the world and an overwhelming desire to contribute to its betterment in any possible way," Bellus said in an e-mailed statement. "We cannot imagine what has taken her away, but we want her back, whatever the circumstances."