Crews searching for missing swimmer in Ocean City, New Jersey, Coast Guard says
The search continues for a swimmer who went missing in Ocean City, New Jersey, on Monday night.
The U.S. Coast Guard received a report from Ocean City Beach Rescue around 5 p.m. of a missing 20-year-old man last seen on a boogie board near 10th Street and the Boardwalk.
The 20-year-old and another person were in the water on boogie boards roughly 200 feet from the shore, the Coast Guard said. They said one of the people was rescued by Ocean City Beach Rescue, while another remains missing.
The 20-year-old's family spoke with CBS News Philadelphia off-camera and shared that his son just came home from college over the weekend. He said his son is a student at Hofstra University, and they're from Exton.
With the summer-like weather Monday, the missing man's father said his son came down to Ocean City with friends from high school for the day. The family is holding out hope and asking the community to keep them in their prayers.
The person rescued told crews that the missing man was last seen losing his boogie board before being hit by a wave and failing to resurface, the Coast Guard said.
"There was like five or six of them," said Mike Achff, a Philadelphia dad who is in Ocean City on vacation and witnessed what happened. "One of them starts screaming that the other one went under. He couldn't see him. He couldn't find him. His friends ran to call his mom over here, and he ran up to the boardwalk to get a cop. And the cop got the medical people here and the fire trucks."
Ocean City Beach Rescue is leading the search, while the Coast Guard is assisting.
Jet skis, boats and drones were utilized throughout the evening and again Tuesday. A slim part of the beach was closed, but not far away, the sand was packed and the water empty. Lifeguards put out swimming prohibited signs.
Diego Sanchez, operations department head for the Coast Guard's Station Atlantic City, was on a boat with four colleagues for hours Monday night looking for any signs of the missing swimmer.
"Got here within 20 minutes. Within a few hours, I would say, the weather, the wind did pick up. The seas did get a little bit rougher," Sanchez said. "Looking offshore. Looking inshore. Looking north and south. Looking everywhere. Just make sure if we see any head bobbing in the water, any type of debris in the water, we'll make our efforts to really search for the person in the water."
Heading into Memorial Day weekend, Sanchez wants to remind beachgoers this: "If you are going to go into water, try to stay on the side of maybe the lifeguards, beach patrol that's there."
Founder of nonprofit Ocean Positive and water safety expert Bruckner Chase warns about the changes along the Jersey Shore due to beach erosion.
Chase said he has close ties to Upper Township in Cape May County. The township lost its beach patrol headquarters because of the "most dramatic erosion I've ever seen," he said.
He said beach erosion has caused steep drop-offs that make getting to a beach in certain locations dangerous and also exposed rocks and jetties that were previously covered.
"Depending on the tide cycle, those areas may be hidden underwater or more exposed," Chase said. "But if you're going out into the water at high tide, there may be submerged dangers that if you are boogie boarding or you're on a wave, you can get driven into the sand or driven into a hard object that could traumatically impact you, cause traumatic, life-changing injuries even without it becoming a fatal drowning."
Experts also stress the importance of going in the water when lifeguards are on duty.
In Ocean City, lifeguards start guarding beaches over the holiday weekend for the season.
The man's family did not want to share his name at this time, nor a photo of him, as of Tuesday afternoon.
