VIDEO: Good Samaritan helps boy caught in rip tide to safety
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (WPVI) -- Our cameras spotted Good Samaritan Luis Sanjurjo helping a boy, who was desperately clinging to a jagged edge, swim to safety Sunday. Both had been catching waves in Atlantic City's rocky waters when rip tides slammed them near the pier.
"The waves pushed him to the rocks, and I was showing him the way out, and I got cut myself," said Sanjurjo. "I'm good, I'm good."
This is the type of incident beach patrol wants to avoid.
"It is what it is," said Sanjurjo.
The young boy showed us his bloody cuts while struggling to catch his breath.
We asked him did he plan to go back into the water.
"No, I'm done. I'm done," he said.
Many parents on the beach did heed the patrol's warnings not to go into the water.
"I can only get my feet wet," said Mariella Johnson of New York City.
"I'm not there. I've got to be right there, and she still couldn't go up further than the middle of her leg," said Michelle Love of Baltimore.
While others continued to surf and splash in the current growing more violent because of Hermine.
Still, Sanjurjo told us he would go back in.
"That's what I came down here for," said Sanjurjo.
"It was a good thing I was in the water. If not, he would have been stuck against the rocks. Something worst could have happened instead of cuts," he added.
While the Good Samaritan did save the kid's life, this could have been avoided all together.
Let this be a cautionary tale to stay out of the water. The ocean is off limits to swimmers for the remainder of the holiday weekend.
