Long Branch man out for morning jog jumps into action to save teen in Jersey Shore waters
He got a call from his wife that two boys were in the water at Cottage Place Beach and needed help.
More Stories
There was another rescue at the Jersey Shore while lifeguards were not on duty.
This time, it happened in Long Branch Thursday morning.
A Long Branch resident who was out for a morning jog jumped into action to rescue the swimmer.
“I usually run every morning around nine or 9:30 a.m. Yesterday, I started a little later. Probably around 11 a.m.,” said Solomon Moyal, who runs every day.
A phone call delayed Moyal’s run by about 90 minutes. That delay led him to be just a quarter mile away from near disaster when he got a frantic call from his wife that two boys were in the water at Cottage Place Beach and needed help.
“For that minute, I was running like at a 4:40 mile pace. I ran as fast as I can,” said Moyal.
His GPS tracker shows his speed increase, and as he reached the scene, the first thing he noticed was the wave action.
“They were constant, like every four or five seconds, they were just hitting,” he said.
Moyal then spotted the 18-year-old struggling to stay above water.
“Every breath he takes he is swallowing water. The waves kept hitting him in the face. I jumped in, I grabbed his hand, and after like a minute, just told him to turn on his back. I held his arm, and we started swimming back really slowly,” recalled Moyal.
By now, ocean rescue crews led one of the young men out of the ocean, while Moyal kept the second person afloat until crews reached them. After being checked out at a hospital, both men were fine.
Moyal never got the young man’s name he helped rescue. However, he got a phone call at the end of the day letting him know that both the man he saved, and his friend are going to be just fine.
“That’s what made me feel good. Everything else was I feel like I did what everyone else would have done but after he called me and said I’m the boy you saved my life. I felt good," he said.
The humble runner says he’s no hero. Instead, Moyal says his faith led him to be at the right place.
“God put me there at the right time. Everything worked out was perfect," he said.
