Brothers on the beach
As a lifeguard, your top priority is to keep the public safe, either in the pool or at the beach. Sometimes, this involves taking heroic measures to help people who are in trouble.
For one lifeguard at Jones Beach on Long Island, the person he ended up saving was another lifeguard.
Joe Curry and Brandon Cullen, both 24, have been working and hanging out together for the past five summers. Yet since he was a child, Curry has suffered from Alport Syndrome, a rare genetic disease that affects kidney function. So when Curry's kidneys started to fail last year, Cullen offered to donate one to him.
Doctors performed the kidney donation and transplant surgery last spring — and it was a success. And after months of convalescence, the lifeguards were back on the beach, helping others.
"[It was] a very personal selfless act by him. I'm eternally grateful for it," Curry said.