A GO Train full of passengers is stuck on the flooded tracks during a major rainstorm in downtown Toronto on July 8, 2013.Philip Cheung/The Globe and Mail
Wrapped in an orange blanket and his forehead glistening wet, "Nick" described his rescue to a TV crew. "The water level kept getting higher. It was up to our knees," he said to the reporter. "I'm just glad that one of the officers there, he actually picked me up."
But according to Toronto Police, the victim who called himself Nick and said he had to be rescued from a flooded GO train last week, made the entire story up. "Nick," police say , is actually Constable Nickolas Dorazio, an officer with the Major Crimes Unit in the Toronto Police Service.
According to police, Constable Dorazio was at the scene of the flooded GO train Monday night, but as a rescuer, not a passenger. It's unclear why, in a video that has since been posted on the CBC website, he told the reporter that he was a flood victim. Toronto police say he has since been disciplined and re-assigned.
In the video, Constable Dorazio, dressed in a grey t-shirt and shorts, tells the Global News reporter that he was on the first floor of the train when the train began filling with water.
Monday evening's flooding brought 126 millimetres of rain into the city in just two hours, leaving 1,400 riders on Richmond Hill-bound train stranded on flooded tracks, some for nearly seven hours.
"It just sort of snuck up, it just kept bigger and bigger, and all of a sudden, you were just sort of wading in water," Constable Dorazio says. He adds that he tried to go to the top floor of the train, "but it was crowded. There wasn't enough room."
He later tells the reporter that his knees were weak and "wobbly because of the cold," and that an officer had to carry him to safety.
"It was nice of him," he says.
After the interview, Constable Dorazio is seen walking away from the TV crew and towards a police cruiser. He takes the orange blanket off his shoulders and wraps another man standing next to the cruiser with it.
Toronto Police officials slammed Constable Dorazio's behaviour, describing it as an unfortunate attempt at a joke.
Toronto Police spokesman Mark Pugash called Constable Dorazio's behaviour "unacceptable," adding that "if it was intended as a joke, it wasn't a very good joke."
Chief Bill Blair meanwhile, told Newstalk 1010 the behaviour was "stupid" and "shameful."
A photograph of Constable Dorazio with Chief Blair at a police graduate event several years ago appears on the Toronto Police website.
"There was no malice meant by it," Toronto Police Association president Mike McCormack said. "It was just misplaced humour that went too far."
Constable Dorazio is listed on the Ontario "Sunshine List," – which names public sector workers who make over $100,000 – as earning over $103,000 in 2012.
With reports from The Canadian Press