At about 6:30 p.m. on Friday, July 25, the Long Beach Police Department received a 911 call reporting “two swimmers in distress” at Riverside Boulevard. Cousins Fahad Zahidi, 23, of Levittown, and Osama Shafeeq, 19, of Valley Stream, had gotten caught in a riptide at 6:20 and were being pulled farther out into the water. As he tried to help his cousin, Zahidi was overpowered by the current and submerged.
While lifeguards reached Zahidi and pulled him back to shore and the city Fire Department rushed him to Long Beach Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 6:40 p.m., police, lifeguards and the Coast Guard searched for Shafeeq in vain. On Tuesday, July 29, at 8:40 a.m., a jogger caught sight of a man's body that had washed ashore at Virginia Avenue, which was later identified to be Shafeeq.
On Saturday, July 26 at 6:58 p.m., the police received a 911 call reporting a “person in distress” in the ocean at Lindell Boulevard. The victim, John Swiderski, 29, of Wantagh, apparently was surfing when he was knocked off his board into the water. Police responded, along with the city lifeguards' emergency response team, and spotted Swiderski about 150 yards from shore. After lifeguards pulled him to shore and tried to resuscitate him, he was taken to LBMC and pronounced dead at 7:27 p.m. In response to the drownings, Long Beach police imposed a temporary “zero tolerance” policy and patrolled the beaches, issuing summonses to anyone found in the water between 6 p.m. and 9 a.m., when lifeguards are not working. Police also posted signs at entrances to the beach that detail what swimmers should do when caught in a riptide. Roy Lester, a 40-year veteran lifeguard who worked at Jones Beach and a Long Beach school board trustee, called on the City Council at its Aug. 5 meeting to extend the hours to keep lifeguards on duty, from 6 p.m. to at least 7 p.m., arguing that it could do so at minimal cost. “You have it in your power to do it,” he said.
In an effort to show that Long Beach suffers a shortfall in lifeguards, Council President Thomas Sofield, Jr. said that already the city was losing several lifeguards who were heading back to college, and that the city must follow state regulations and man each of its 24 lifeguard posts with two guards. Long Beach has some 140 full- and part-time lifeguards.
Lt. Bruce Meyer, a Long Beach Police Department spokesman, said that lifeguards already work nine-hour shifts. “We have to be concerned about their welfare,” Meyer said. “We then run the risk of them not getting much rest and becoming a liability to themselves and swimmers.”
