Community Corner

Long Beach Surfing Instructor Rescues RVC Teens

Swimmers pulled in at same beach where two others were saved the day before.

Cliff Skudin, a co-operator of the surfing school Skudin Surf, along with an unidentified good Samaritan, rescued three Rockville Centre teens from drowning near a jetty off Long Beach Boulevard beach at about 5:30 p.m. Tuesday.

At the time, Skudin was giving a private surfing lesson and walking along the beach toward Monroe Boulevard when he heard the trio, who were about 50 to 100 yards out in the ocean, yell for help.

The surfing instructor jumped in the water to save them, followed by a bystander, according to the Long Beach Herald. Said Skudin:

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“The first thing I did was, I gave my surfboard to the closer victim and told him to hold onto it. And then I went for the next two — I didn’t have time to take him in and go back out and look for the other two guys.”

Tuesday’s rescue came a day , where there is a treacherous large hole along the shore near the jetty, according to Paul Gillespie, chief of Long Beach lifeguards.

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At about 6:15 p.m. on Monday, a man jogging along the beach spotted a woman in distress in the water, jumped in to save her and got swept up in the riptide himself, after which lifeguards rescued them both.

Then, at about 8:20 p.m., a police officer observed a male youth in distress in the water and, after he unsuccessfully tried to pull him out using an inflatable rescue stick, jumped in the water and pulled him to shore.

“If you go in the water near there and you just take step in there, you’re going to get sucked out,” Gillespie said. “It’s a very treacherous position there. We’ve lost a lot of people who have drowned at that jetty.”


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