Photographer Recounts Swimmer Rescue At Island Beach State Park

TOMS RIVER, NJ ? Two summers ago, Gregory Andrus spent the season interviewing lifeguards in Ocean and Monmouth counties and gathering their stories of watching over beachgoers at the Jersey Shore.

Now, Andrus has a story of his own after he and another man ran into the ocean to pull out an unresponsive swimmer at Island Beach State Park on Sunday.

The rescue was one of dozens that happened up and down the New Jersey coast over the Labor Day weekend, as rip currents and lingering effects of the full moon on the tides led to danger for people seeking relief in the water from hot temperatures.

At least two people have died, and a third swimmer was still missing as of Tuesday morning after the weekend's incidents, many of which happened after lifeguards had gone off duty for the day.

The rescue happened while he was at Island Beach State Park with his wife and sons; he and a man he knows only as Carlos from Elizabeth ran to help when someone yelled a man was drowning.

Andrus is the author and photographer behind the Facebook page Portraits of the Jersey Shore, which started as a place where he shared the stories and photos of everyday people who live, work and visit the Jersey Shore. The beach is his passion and the place he loves to spend as many hours as possible, and has been a focal point of the page from its inception.

For the last two years, one of the messages he has consistently delivered on his page has been trying to help people understand and respect the power of the ocean, driven in part by his experiences watching lifeguards in action as he profiled them in his book "Sand, Sea & Rescue: Lifeguards of the Jersey Shore."

"I am a bit dazed today," he said Monday afternoon as he granted permission for Patch to share his retelling of the rescue, which happened about an hour after lifeguards were finished for the day at Island Beach State Park.

"It was low tide. IBSP was still pretty crowded. My family and I were getting ready to go. As we stood up to leave a man came running over and asked if we had a surfboard. I looked at him quizzically and then I realized that he was saying that someone was drowning," Andrus wrote.

He looked where the man was pointing, 30 yards north on the beach and saw the swimmer, about 50 yards out in the water.

"I assessed if he was in a rip or not while I told my son Elijah to give me his boogie board. Thankfully for the man?s sake he was not in a rip," Andrus wrote. He strapped the leash to his wrist and ran into the water, where he encountered Carlos, who also was rushing to the man's aid.

As they reached the man, they realized he was "no longer struggling to swim. He was close to floating face down, waves pounding him. A horrible indication he was close to the point of no return," Andrus wrote.

The water was neck-deep so Andrus and Carlos were able to stand and manuevered the man onto the boogie board and started pulling him into shore.

"He was not responding to us," Andrus wrote. "I was terrified for him and we pulled him in as fast as we could while waves washed over us, knocking him off the board as we kept putting him back on."

When they reached shallow water, other people came over and helped pull the man the rest of the way onto the beach.

"He was awake, but not 'with us,' as in he was a combination of shock and his body beyond exhausted," Andrus wrote. He yelled for someone to call 911 and for anyone who knew CPR, then rolled the man onto his side in an attempt to get him to cough up any water he had swallowed.

"He was burping a ton and I figured he had swallowed a bit of water, but I wasn?t able to get it out. I didn?t know exactly how to," Andrus wrote. A former EMT named April joined him to assist the man while they waited for first responders.

"Thankfully there were some lifeguards nearby enough and they came over in a quad, and soon State Park police came," Andrus said, and the man was flown to the hospital.

"I finally got back to my wife and two boys and we prayed right there on the beach," for the man, Andrus said, and asked his readers to pray for the man as well. "The lifeguards did tell me that he had a pulse, thank God. I also thank God for Carlos who helped me pull him in."

Andrus, in a phone call Tuesday afternoon, said the man's wife contacted him and said her husband survived, thanks to the efforts of Andrus and Carlos.

"The lifeguards told me that this was the most packed they had seen IBSP, and they made at least a dozen saves today (Sunday). I?m still shocked that I helped make another one," he wrote.

On Monday, Andrus was again urging his readers to respect the ocean and to not swim when lifeguards are not on duty, a message that has taken on a new urgency.

"I think I?m a bit traumatized by last night," he wrote in a follow-up post where he shared the photo of himself and Carlos. "Not just by the actual rescue, but by knowing that it will not be the last one that will have needed to be made this month. There will be other rescues, possibly even other drownings. And that just really really makes me sad. Please for the love of God, swim only where lifeguards are present. Please stay safe. You will put yourself and others in danger if you are not being careful. "