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2 Men Dead After Being Rescued From O.C. Waters Just Minutes Apart

OCEAN CITY, Md. (WJZ) -- Two men are dead and four more had to be rescued from a wicked rip current in Ocean City Wednesday afternoon. It's the fourth and fifth time this summer that someone's lost their life being pulled under.

Christie Ileto has the warning from lifeguards.

Two separate rescues just minutes apart. A rip current was Wednesday's silent killer in Ocean City's waters.

"A lot of people were crying actually and really concerned about who it was," witness William Bobst said.

Panic on the beach. The first victim is a 52-year-old man from Pennsylvania. He's one of the swimmers Beach Patrol pulled from the rip current's clasp and the only one not to survive.

"They were giving him artificial respiration all the way through to the ambulance," witness Phyllis Bloom said.

The second victim who drowned was a 49-year-old Baltimore County man.

Strong rip currents can appear as quickly as they vanish. Choppy, churning waters can trap even the strongest of swimmers---who are encouraged not to fight the current and swam parallel to shore.

"It's kind of like walking up an escalator that's going down. Eventually it wins," said a Beach Patrol official.

Every year, millions of people cross the Bay Bridge, journeying to Ocean City's waters. This year, those waters have been especially rough---even deadly in the last four months.

Two Maryland teens drowned in Ocean City within a span of two weeks in June and last month, a rip current in the same waters overcame a swimmer from Virginia.

This latest deaths are a cautionary tale to swim safely, especially when the ocean has a mind of its own.

The last time Ocean City saw multiple drownings was in 2006 when a Columbia man and his 15-year-old daughter drowned while he tried to save her in a rip current.

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