Off-Duty Lifeguard Rescues Four at Ninth Street on Sunday

For Ocean City Beach Patrol lifeguard Matt Betson, Sunday turned out to be a typical summer day—with warm weather, a crowded beach at Ninth Street and an ocean rescue.

But that's not what the 22-year-old expected to find in early October. Betson, a seven-year guard, had returned to the beach where he's worked for the past five summers only to give his pet turtles some sun.

Shortly after he got there, he heard a mother screaming from the beach and looked up to see a father and his three children in the water hanging onto the rocks of the Ninth Street jetty.

Unable to swim back to the beach, the father was trying to have his children climb onto the slippery rocks.

Betson took the plunge into the 65-degree water and felt the shallow sand give way to a deep overhead gully near the jetty, where a rip was pulling out to sea. He said it was easy to see how the family got into trouble.

Betson said he swam the first child back across the gully to the safety of shallower water—then the dad "just started launching them" as Betson ferried the other two back to the beach.

He said the father was the last and most difficult of the rescues. He said the family left the beach quickly after they reached safety.

Betson said a police officer who responded to the scene told him that there had been a handful of other water rescues in Ocean City on a gorgeous fall weekend that saw air temperatures in the 80s and water temperatures in the mid-60s.

Betson is a a teacher's aide at Middle Township Elementary School No. 2.