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 Treacherous rip currents spawned by the remnants of Tropical Storm Bill led to the drowning of one beachgoer yesterday and to the presumed drowning of another on Friday, marring a dazzling holiday weekend at the Jersey Shore. Lifeguards at packed beaches in Monmouth and Ocean counties rescued hundreds more people swept away from shallow water by the powerful currents. "I've been involved in lifeguarding for 40 years, and I've never seen anything like it," said Michael Fowler, the lifeguard supervisor for the Monmouth County parks system. "We had a record-setting day with regard to rescues." At Seven Presidents Oceanfront Park in Long Branch, Fowler's lifeguards mounted 120 rescues on July 4, eclipsing in one day the 93 rescues recorded during the entire 1990 season, which had been the busiest since Fowler began keeping records 15 years ago. No lifeguards were on duty at the time of yesterday morning's drowning in Belmar and Friday evening's presumed drowning in Asbury Park. A search for the Asbury Park victim, a 32-year-old Jersey City resident whose name had not been released, was called off yesterday afternoon. In Belmar, police said a 33-year-old Trenton man, Jorge Marino Mora Roman, drowned after a rip current pulled him into deep water at about 8:50 a.m. yesterday. Roman, who leaves a wife and child in his native Costa Rica, was swimming with three friends off the Eighth Avenue Beach when he slipped under the waves, Detective-Sgt. Andrew Huisman said. "His friends managed to get out of the water by themselves," Huisman said. "He did not." Lifeguards who had been scheduled for duty just 10 minutes after Roman's disappearance rushed to the beach and into the water. They found him 15 minutes later. He was pronounced dead at Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune shortly before 10 a.m. The incident in Asbury Park occurred about 6 p.m. Friday, while the Jersey City resident, a native of Puerto Rico, was using a body board off Eighth Avenue, said Joe Bongiovanni, the beach's safety supervisor. Lifeguards had gone off duty an hour earlier. Caught in a rip current, the man lost contact with his body board and was swept out to deeper water, where he disappeared, Bongiovanni and Asbury Park fire Capt. Dominick Marino said. A friend of the man tried to save him but was forced to retreat to the beach, Bongiovanni said. "He was very close to drowning," the safety supervisor said. While the Coast Guard searched the area by helicopter, divers from Asbury Park and nearby towns went into the ocean. The search, called off at 9:30 Friday night, resumed at dawn yesterday. The effort was suspended after about seven hours as the divers, exhausted by the rough conditions, found nothing. A surface search was expected to resume today. Lifeguards at several beaches yesterday said the two incidents demonstrate the need for people to swim only when lifeguards are on duty. "Most of these emergencies occur either in nonlifeguarded areas or before opening hours, and it's such a tragedy when it happens," said Fowler, the Seven Presidents lifeguard chief. "If you swim near a lifeguard, you have a much greater chance of being rescued." Those lifeguards were put to the test on Independence Day, when hundreds of thousands of people, starved for sun after weeks of cold or rainy weekend weather, descended on the Shore. "With the weather we've been having, people were just itching to get to the beach," Manasquan lifeguard supervisor Jay Price said. "We had massive numbers of people, and some of them were inexperienced swimmers put into situations they weren't able to handle." Price said his lifeguards were involved in dozens of rescues Friday, most the result of rip currents, which occur when a swath of water recedes much faster than the surrounding ocean. Rip currents, found along most of the shore, are especially strong during periods of heavy surf. Such currents have been active for the past several days as Tropical Storm Bill, which menaced Louisiana Monday, moved off the Virginia coast Thursday and drifted northeastward offshore. Conditions had eased significantly as the day wore on yesterday, with lifeguards reporting only a handful of rescues at several popular beaches. "Yesterday it was very strong. Today, it's just big waves -- no undertow at all," said Rob Schick, 41, who was swimming in Asbury Park yesterday afternoon. Some beaches were rougher than others. A slice of beach at 13th Avenue in Belmar was closed off to swimmers, with a lifeguard, stationed alongside the area in a kayak, warning bathers away. Today's conditions are expected to be calmer along the length of the shore. While the rough surf had little effect on boaters, the large July 4 crowds contributed to a host of accidents that left the State Police Marine Unit, based at Point Pleasant, rushing from call to call, Sgt. William DeMasi said. "It was a nuthouse," he said. Several accidents involved collisions of boats. In one case, a girl suffered a broken arm when her personal watercraft struck an anchor line in Silver Bay, DeMasi said. In a case related neither to crowds nor current, a 22-foot boat exploded in Barnegat Bay shortly after refueling, DeMasi said. Three men were blown off the boat by the force of the blast, the police sergeant said, while two others jumped into the bay to save themselves. Quickly rescued by nearby boaters, none of the men suffered life-threatening injuries. "They were very, very lucky," DeMasi said. The most seriously injured of the men, 32-year-old Timothy Sullivan of Howell, was in stable condition yesterday at Ocean Medical Center in Brick. The accident, which occurred about 30 yards offshore, remains under investigation. Lifesaving Resources Inc. - www.lifesaving.com - 603/563-8330 |
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