BRICK TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) - Two lifeguards out for a run along a New Jersey beach helped rescue a 10-year-old girl who got caught in a rip current.
Chadwick Beach lifeguards Matt Schwartz and Brett Tusinac, both 19, were on a physical training run along a stretch of water in Brick Township not heavily monitored when they heard the girl's cries for help Monday afternoon.
Lifeguard captain Ed Peters told the Asbury Park Press they ran into the rough surf, swam out about 50 yards and pulled the girl ashore.
Tusinac and Schwartz said they felt a burst of adrenaline rushing into the water to save the girl.
The area of the beach is loosely patrolled, which could have been deadly with Monday's rip current and rough surf.
"Thank God they were on their run," Ed Peters said, adding the lifeguards risked their lives with no equipment.
The girl was shaken, but unharmed. She was not taken to a hospital and was reunited with her family.
Peters said the lifeguards were in the right place at the right time. Tusinac and Schwartz are second-year lifeguards.
For Tusinac, this was his first rescue of the year.
This year, the Jersey shore recorded a number of youth drownings. Two girls drowned off the coast of Belmar this summer. A 12-year-old girl drowned at a Sandy Hook beach last week, and bodies of two teenagers who drowned at a beach off of Atlantic City were recovered days after they were pulled out to water.