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A day at the beach turned into a tragedy as one person was left dead and six others were saved during a jet-ski rescue amid a dramatic scene.
The fire department responded to a distress call on Monday evening at 6:55 p.m. ET at a beach in Seaside Heights, New Jersey. (See the video at the top of this article.)
Six individuals were caught in a rip current at Webster Avenue Beach about 100 yards offshore, according to the Jersey Shore Fire Response.
DEADLY RIP CURRENT FATALITIES REPORTED AMID SUMMER BEACH SEASON AS EXPERTS WEIGH IN
The beach did not have lifeguards on duty at the time of the incident.
The Seaside Heights Fire Department deployed a rescue swimmer with a jet ski, successfully bringing the victims to shore.
Dramatic aerial video shows the rescuer grabbing the individuals one by one, placing them on a raft and quickly driving to shore with medics on site.
Another person was found in the water and rushed to shore — with CPR performed on the seventh individual, FOX 5 reported.
Tragically, the person was taken to the Community Medical Center and later pronounced dead.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Seaside Heights Fire Department for comment.
There have already been 49 rip current deaths reported so far this year, according to the National Weather Service.
Chris Brewster of the United States Lifesaving Association told Fox News Digital recently that most people are not aware of rip currents while they’re in the water.
“They notice that they’re further away from the beach than they thought they were, then typically they try to swim back toward the shore and realize they’re making no progress,” said Brewster.
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This then “causes panic and that leads them to expend a lot of energy,” he said. That’s what “results in the drowning ultimately.”
“The big picture is that once you realize this is going on, don’t fight the current, because you won’t win. Relax, float and then try to swim out of the rip,” advised Brewster.
Brewster co-authored a peer-reviewed study estimating rip current rescues and drowning in the U.S. published in Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences.
Rip currents were found to cause 81.9% of rescues on surf beaches.
It’s possible that more than 100 fatal drownings per year occur due to them.
The Seaside Heights Fire Department’s ocean rescue team recently saved 12 people from a rip current on beaches with lifeguards on duty, according to FOX 5.
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