Ocean City Beach Patrol offers swimming safety tips

Staying on the beach, Memorial day is quickly approaching, which means thousands of people will be hitting the beach this weekend but the Ocean City Beach Patrol wants to remind the public of how to stay safe while swimming.

The first tip they have is to never go in the water when there is a rip current, especially when there is no life guard on duty.

If you do happen to find yourself caught in a rip current, swim parallel to the shore until you can get out of it.

Next, you may think its safe to swim in shallow water, but shallow water can actually be a pretty dangerous place.

That's because of a thing called shore break. This is a phenomenon where you have a wave that's breaking in shallow water or right on the sand, and it can put you in a pretty dangerous situation.

Lieutenant Ward Kovacz with the Ocean City Beach Patrol said, "Life guards call that area no man's land because they don't want anyone hanging around in there. People usually, when there's shore break they like to transition from being in the sand to being out past the breakers as quickly as possible by ducking under the waves, shallow diving only, so you don't strike the ocean floor."

The Ocean City Beach Patrol wants to remind you that if you plan on swimming in the ocean this Memorial Day weekend, make sure to keep your feet in the sand until a lifeguard is in the stand.