CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 7/1/2018

Celebrate 4th of July weekend with the lifeguards of Jones Beach

"The lifeguards appear when a victim's life has been reduced to a single moment, an agonizing encounter with an untimely death. Yet the lifeguards themselves, seated above the throng on gleaming white chairs, are the very symbols of youth and immortality. A weak swimmer can easily lose his life in a storm-whipped sea, and the job of a lifeguard isn't without its perils: Jones Beach guards have been smashed on the jetty and swept out to sea, even run through by the oarlocks of the old wooden dory boats. But with the strength and know-how to cheat the great sucking grip of the surf, ocean lifeguards are virtually drown proof. In the 85 year history of Jones Beach, not one has ever drowned. On late summer days when hurricanes send burly swells pulsing toward the South Shore of Long Island, when the surf turns white and thunderous and the water is closed to patrons, the lifeguards swim, paddle, and row out into the maelstrom smiling." —Greg Donaldson, Joseph Szabo: Lifeguard