Jersey Shore Lifeguards Tell Their Stories In New Book

TOMS RIVER, NJ — As beachgoers flock to the sands up and down the Jersey Shore this weekend, joining them in many locations will be lifeguards, who will take their seats on the stands to watch over and keep them safe.

Some are young, 16, 17 years old. Others have sat on the towers and watched over the water for decades. All of them have stories. A new book coming out next week captures some of those stories, while paying tribute to lifeguards past and present for their years of watchful service.

The book, “Sand, Sea & Rescue: Lifeguards of the Jersey Shore,” was photographed and written by Gregory Andrus, the founder of the Facebook group Portraits of the Jersey Shore. It is set for formal release at a launch party June 3 at Drifters in Seaside Heights.

The 120-page book is filled with photos and interviews with lifeguards chosen from eight weeks of interviews Andrus conducted in July and August 2021. In addition to photos and text, there are QR codes on some pages that connect readers to audio where they can hear the lifeguards tell their stories. Andrus, who is colorblind, took the photos for the book using a film camera that had been gifted to him, instead of one of his digital cameras.

“If I could have done my 20s over again I would have loved to have been a lifeguard,” Andrus said. “They are the first responders of the beaches. I love how they literally have a job at the beach but I also admire how important their jobs are.

“They are the line between life and death for those who do not understand the power of the ocean,” he said.

Andrus, who lives in Toms River with his wife, Mary, and their two sons, founded Portraits of the Jersey Shore in August 2015, taking photos of everyday people and sharing their stories. His goal is spreading a greater understanding of the idea that each person has a story to tell, and each person’s humanity matters. The page now has more than 30,000 followers. (You can read more about Andrus here: Jersey Shore Photographer Is A Portrait Of Redemption)

Andrus has worked on other projects; he does a series highlighting teachers, for which he receives a stipend, and he published his first book, “Portraits of the Jersey Shore,” a collection of his profiles, in 2018.

When he decided last summer to focus on a project to highlight lifeguards, he poured his energy into it. But the book took on greater significance to him – and greater urgency – after the deaths of two lifeguards as the summer of 2021 was coming to a close.

Norman Inferra III, 16, died Aug. 19 when the rowboat he was patrolling in flipped in the rough waters at the beach in Cape May. Inferra, of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, was a first-year guard.

Just over a week later, Keith Pinto, 19, of Toms River, was killed by a lightning strike on the beach in the South Seaside Park section of Berkeley Township, where he had been a lifeguard for four years.

The two deaths shook the lifeguard community – and the larger Jersey Shore community – deeply, and prompted Andrus to dedicate the book to them.

“The Jersey Shore is a unique region of New Jersey,” said Andrus, who moved to the shore from Middlesex County in 2005. “It experiences situations unlike any other part of the state,” particularly with the influx of tourists each summer. Incidents where someone dies at the Shore, such as the death of the Maine 18-year-old in the sand collapse in Toms River, are felt throughout the community, even if the person who died is not from here.

“It traumatizes our region,” he said. “Lifeguards help keep it all together.”

The book can be preordered on the Portraits of the Jersey Shore website.

“This is my love letter to the Jersey Shore,” Andrus said.