MANASQUAN — The riptide at the Manasquan Inlet nearly took a man’s life during last Friday’s storm. If it weren’t for three heroic bystanders and a young off-duty Coast Guard officer who pulled him out of a rip current, a local surfer might not have made it out of the water alive.
Pete Fiorentino, a local building contractor in Lavallette, said he was driving across the Brielle Bridge on Friday around 1 p.m. when his car was knocked into the side of the wall from the 70 mph winds. He became curious of what the inlet looked like in these kinds of weather conditions, so he drove to the Point Pleasant side of the inlet and parked his car and stumbled upon the sight of a man fighting for his life.
The rescued man, who told The Coast Star he would wished to remain anonymous, said he had gone surfing off of Dog Beach in Manasquan with three others on Friday. He said that normally it is a perfect place to go surfing because the current is mild and moves back to the bay away from the ocean.
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To his surprise, conditions were very different last Friday.
The three other surfers were rescued by the Manasquan Fire Department and the Marine 27 boat, according to Manasquan Fire Chief Ed Hill.
The fourth surfer, eventually rescued by Mr. Fiorentino, was not as lucky. The wind appeared to be blowing in the wrong direction, causing the usually mild current to pull the man rapidly out towards the inlet. He told The Coast Star that he could hear the unusually large waves crashing against the rocks as he paddled for his life toward Gull Island.
“It felt like an ultra powerful riptide flowing out to the ocean,” he said. “I was heading out to the inlet where I did not want to be at all.”
On Christmas Day, Mr. Fiorentino said, he received a voicemail from the man thanking him for the rescue and offering to take him out for a drink.
“He called me and thanked me from the bottom of his heart for saving him,” said Mr. Fiorentino.
“Pete played a huge role in helping me,” the man told The Coast Star.
This is an excerpt of the print article. For more on this story, read The Coast Star—on newsstands Thursday or online in our e-Edition.
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