4 Different Rescues Of Swimmers In Belmar Sunday: Report

BELMAR, NJ — Several swimmers had to be rescued Sunday in Belmar, according to News 12, which has video footage of the rescues.

Police and lifeguards had to make four different rescues Sunday in Belmar, they reported.

Swimmers caught in rip currents had to be pulled onto a jetty by first responders.

Belmar is where a 13-year-old girl drowned in mid-August after she and her sister got caught in a rip current. The girl who died was identified as Sameeha Sultana, and she drowned Aug. 15 after she and her younger sister, age 12, became caught in a rip current off a beach in Belmar.

The two sisters started screaming for help at about 6:30 p.m. Friday, and Belmar Police said they received the first of multiple 911 calls at 6:36 p.m. Lifeguards had gone off duty at 6 p.m.

A bystander, identified as Thomas Walsh, a retired Monmouth County corrections officer who lives in Freehold, was able to jump into the water and rescue the 12-year-old, pulling her to the jetty.

But her older sister could not be saved in time. Sameeha was found responsive in the water about an hour later, at 7:30 p.m. Lifeguards and paramedics tried to save her life on the beach, but she was pronounced dead at Jersey Shore University Medical Center.

The two sisters live in Jersey City with their family. The two sisters were in Belmar that evening as part of a field trip with a group called Young Muslims, a national Islamic youth organization, the Asbury Park Press reported. A family friend said the girls, along with other kids in the youth group, should not have been allowed into the ocean when lifeguards had already gone off duty for the day. He also said the oldest person supervising the Young Muslims trip to Belmar was an 18-year-old counselor, which he called “poor judgment."

There should have been more adult supervisors on the trip, he told the Asbury Park Press.