Verona man gives the gift of life

North Jersey | Andrew Segedin

While competing in a surf fishing tournament in Brigantine several years ago, Len Basile of Verona was consumed by a wave that crashed over him. While Basile was underwater, struggling to the surface, a large hand reached into the water and pulled him up.

Looking back on that day now, in his classroom at Montclair High School, Basile doesn’t put as much significance in his time under the water as he does in the hand that pulled him up.

The hand belonged to Mike Snuffer of Secaucus, known among his peers as "Big Mike," a friend of Basile’s and fellow member of the Hudson River Fisherman’s Association.

Basile describes the club as a "whole group of knuckleheads" who tend to put up a macho routine while, deep down, remaining very tight knit.

It came as a terrible shock then, last autumn, when Snuffer told fellow members that, due to his battle with diabetes, he was in need of a new kidney.
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