A 27-year-old man was barely alive when rescuers plucked the distressed swimmer from the ocean after receiving reports that a man was drowning off Long Beach, officials in the Long Island town said Wednesday.
The Long Beach Fire Department received a report of a distressed swimmer at Lincoln Blvd. and Ocean Beach Park at 5:33 p.m. Tuesday, the department said in a statement.
Four fire department responders rushed into the water, three swimming and one on a surfboard, and pulled the man to shore in cardiac arrest.
On land, the rescuers performed CPR, administered a defibrillator and got the man to the boardwalk and a waiting ambulance, “where Advanced Life Support Treatment was performed” before he was rushed to the nearby Mount Sinai South Nassau Emergency Department at Long Beach.
There, the man’s pulse came back, and he was then taken to Mount Sinai South Nassau hospital in Oceanside, officials said.
The department hat-tipped several other units that responded to the scene, including a number of neighboring fire departments and a water rescue unit with Jetski.
The near-drowning came the day after Labor Day, so lifeguards were off duty for the season, city officials told News12 Long Island. They renewed their longstanding warnings against going into the water when no lifeguards are present.
