From today's New York Daily News:
Heroic rescuers pulled a foundering New York City teen Wednesday from the same deadly stretch of ocean that claimed a Harlem sixth-grader just 24 hours earlier.
Andrew Kim, 15, was swallowing salt water and struggling to stay afloat when he was carried ashore by three Good Samaritans in Long Beach - where lifeguards were once again off-duty.
"He kept getting pulled in," said buddy Steve Kim, a fellow student at Bronx Science High School. "He said he lost the strength in his legs."
The two teens were among a group of 10 wading in the Atlantic Ocean about 20 feet from shore when Kim started drifting, unable to fight through a tide pulling him away from shore.
The exhausted teen was soon battling to stay above water, said Eddie Oliva, 45, an off-duty auxiliary police lieutenant who spotted Kim in the water.
A pair of off-duty lifeguards sprinted into the surf with Oliva, plucking the tired teen from the ocean within 50 feet of where 12-year-old Nicole Suriel drowned Tuesday.
Kim, like Suriel and her classmates, was in the ocean despite signs warning there were no lifeguards. But Kim and his friends had gone on their own and were not part of an official field trip.
As FYI - Eddie O is a longtime friend, former MSG/NY Knicks operations guru and general GREAT guy and terrific friend.
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