Long Beach closed to swimmers due to rip currents after man drowns

LONG BEACH, New York (WABC) -- The ocean at Long Beach is temporarily closed to swimmers due to extreme rip currents, after one person died and another needed to be rescued Monday.

The public can still visit the beach, but the water is considered too dangerous for swimming.

Lifeguards who were off duty at the time rushed the swimmers to shore after pulling both from the swirling rip currents near Edwards Boulevard around 6:30 p.m.

Alvarez Rodolfo-Lorenzo, 26, of Brooklyn, was taken to South Nassau Hospital, where he died. He is the first drowning in Long Beach this summer.

The second person pulled from the water was taken to Long Beach Medical Center and is expected to survive.

Surfer Ed Fayans first spotted the men struggling to stay afloat.

"Somebody came running up to tell us that there's two guys in the surf need help," he said. "I only saw one, and then when I started running down, I saw a limp body in the surf. And I took that one, and my son went out and got the guy who was way out that was losing it."

"We let the lifeguards take it from there," his son, Maxwell Fayans, said. "But we were able to run out with our surfboards and try to bring them in."

Chief lifeguard Paul Gillespie said the waves were as high as six feet Monday and that several other swimmers needed to be rescued hours earlier.

There are rip current and beach hazard alerts in New York and New Jersey through Tuesday evening.