Sandy hero dies in surfing accident

2012-12-25 10:19

Larry Neumeister

New York - A lifeguard widely praised as a hero after Superstorm Sandy for rescuing neighbours endangered by rolling floodwaters and a fire that destroyed several homes in a small community where grief has been a frequent visitor has died in a surfing accident in Puerto Rico.

As word spread that 23-year-old Dylan Smith, who used his surfboard to ferry so many people to safety during the late October superstorm, had lost his life, a Heroes of Rockaway Facebook page said: "R.I.P. to Dylan Smith, our Rockaway Hero, tragically died this morning surfing in Puerto Rico. He will never be forgotten."

Troy Bradwisch, who lives on the same street as the Smith family, said the presumed drowning death was "crushing" for the neighbourhood.

"It was more shocking than anything," he said. "You can go through the storm and all that, and he goes on vacation to get a sense of normalcy and something like that happens."

Marguerite Wetzel, a Montauk resident who knows the Smith family from trips to Puerto Rico, could barely talk about the death.

"I have two sons, and he exemplified everything you would want your sons to be. I'm going to start tearing up," she said, her voice cracking.

Smith had lived with his parents and a 19-year-old brother when he was not at college. Fire department of New York chief Michael Light, a longtime friend of Smith's recently retired firefighter father, said someone who was with Smith in waters off Maria's Beach in the Puerto Rican community of Rincon notified him of the death.

"We know he died in the water while he was surfing. It's under investigation as to the cause," Light said. "I believe he was with some friends."

Smith's body was found floating near his surfboard, police said. Authorities said a resident of the Puerto Rican town, whose beaches attract surfers from across the world, spotted Smith in the water and took him to shore. They said a doctor tried to resuscitate him.

Light said Smith rescued as many as a dozen people during the superstorm by paddling from porch to porch with his surfboard, moving the helpless, including children and the elderly, from imperiled perches amid swirling floodwaters and a sky filled with flames from a gas line explosion as more than a dozen homes around him burned to the ground.

"It was totally brave and selfless," Light said.

People magazine, which named Smith one of its Heroes of the Year, credited Smith and neighbour Michael McDonnell with rescuing six people trapped by the flood and fire by connecting electric cords and twine into a makeshift rope that could be gripped as they walked the surfboard with people on it to safety at the storm's height.

- SAPA