Salah Selmi is not surprised his father, Salem Salah, waded into the ocean at a Jersey Shore beach in September when two of his younger brothers started struggling in the surf.

The Pennsylvania man probably would have waded in even for a stranger, his son said, because he liked to help people.

What was shocking, and now sad, is that his father did not survive the rescue attempt. Salah was the 55-year-old man that local rescue swimmers pulled from the waters in the Shark River Inlet on Sept.