The City of Hallendale will be reviewing this contract, which is due to expire at the end of September.
According to the former Assistant Mayor, the original actions by this company were totally inexcuseable and unwarranted.

Just another of countless examples of companies looking out for their own bottom-line and liability interests above the interests of the people they're suppose to serve. This is an issue of basic common sense and ethics.

Who in their right mind would knowingly allow someone to drown because of a company policy and fear of losing their job?! I think it's clear what the city of Hallandale needs to do. Anything short of firing Jeff Ellis Management is putting residents in harms way.

I hope Tomas Lopez and the other lifeguards continue to do the right thing and NOT capitulate to Jeff Ellis's offer to reinstate their employment. This guy needs to get out of the lifesaving business period.

All company policies arent exactly perfect. Sometimes it takes something like this for all of us to wakeup. I am happy the owner has done the right thing. Give the owner some credit for coming in and doing the right thing. I hope in the future when they adopt new policies they really look at everything involved before making it law. I can see that the lifeguard going out of his zone could just cause other very dangerous situations....BUT..it didnt and thank god it didnt. I think letting someone knowingly drown as you idlely standby is far worst. I hope companies leave it to their employee's that its ok to THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX next time.

First off, this story has absolutely nothing to do with Obama or anyone else in Washington. It also has nothing to do with the Zimmerman trial. Please stop trying to hijack the discussion with such nonsense. There are plenty of blogs on those subjects that you are more than welcomed to get on and spout your opinions 'till your heart's content.

Second, while I think the worst that should have happened to this young man is a little butt chewing and a return to his post, I really don't blame Jeff Ellis either. I blame lawyers and our litigant society.

A few years ago I watched a show about law suits. They had a guy who owned a company that built ladders. He pointed out all the stickers they put on their ladders; "Don't do this", "Don't do that". etc. He said that every sticker was the result of a law suit. He went on to say that even if someone violated all of the stickers, they could still come back and sue him. We need to put some common sense back into our legal system so garbage like this stops happening and people who try to do the right thing, like this young man, don't have to worry about being fired.

I wouldn’t go back to work for this Jeff Ellis & Assoc. joke of a company either! Can you imagine the tension!? I agree with other posters…the ONLY reason they offered Tomas Lopez his job back is/was because the story went viral and it got a lot of negative publicity for Ellis & Assoc…nothing more than that. As the article stated, several co-workers said they quit in protest. You can’t blame them. It sounds like Jeff Ellis & Assoc. needs to rethink about their rules and regulations…possibly even the value of life! The ridicules idea that it put others in danger is absurd. If Lopez had done the same for a swimmer in this “restricted area”, his total focus on that one particular person would have put everyone else in jeopardy in this “restricted area” simply because his focus was on one person and not the group as a whole. Jeff Ellis & Assoc. can’t win that argument…it doesn’t hold water!

Sorry that some beaches around this country are nothing more than “gated communities” but saving a life or assisting in saving a life shouldn’t ever be considered the wrong thing to do!

Putting company "policy" over a human life can never be the right choice. Sign or no sign, saving someone who is drowning is always the right choice. Someone needs to save the city from this idiot management company !

I am sorry but are they all daft in Florida? Has the heat affected their common sense?

There is a surplus of stupidity these days !! (⋋▂⋌)

Why would you want to employ lifeguards who would just sit there and watch people drown ?

The lifeguards have it right.. not the rulebook

Young man, your family should be proud of you for doing the right thing! You have great friends, too. Hope they get their jobs back if they want them. Speaks volumes! Good luck to you!

Good on yah for not taking the job back. Some companies just aren't worth working for. As far as I am concerned the City that hires that fly by night should be firing them. Other than that I really don't care since I have no intentions of ever taking my family to that God forsaken State with their lawless population. I prefer to go somewhere where they don't cheat in their elections and go around stalking and shooting people and then claiming self defence.

I just heard on the evening news that Tomas turned down the offer to rehire him. GOOD FOR YOU, TOMAS! So, let me get this straight. I am "in my zone" when I see someone struggling not to drown in an area outside my zone of authority. OK! Drown you fool, drown! Wow. How messed up is that! Have any of the local Floridian authorities ever heard about "extenuating circumstances"? The more I hear about FL, the happier I am that I will never live there. Drown baby drown, Stand your ground, a governor who pockets benefits from a health insurance while he assures others will not be insured. Sounds like utopia to me. Yeah, right.

Thank you Lord, it is nice to see common sense winning one for a change. We already had too many stupid people working at TSA, where everybody is perceived to be a terrorist. Laws were meant to be broken and when a rule, law doesn't make sense, then it loses its reason for being. I wish every thing will be more common sense and less about jumping to conclussions. I remember that black lady who was portrait as something she was not and the first thing Obama did was to fire her, instead of finding out all the circumstances and then, if the facts merited a reprisal, then yes, otherwise, haste makes waste and then people, cities, government officials don't have to retreat, when there was not an iota of reason for the firing in the first place. What happened to innocent until proven guilty.

This is the cost of privitization: the T-Bagger/ Libertarian answer to everything. Let people die. Take your money, Fire the hero and run!

Many states have some version of a duty to rescue law, sometimes called a “Good Samaritan” law in reference to a New Testament parable about the importance of helping strangers. These laws vary widely in the requirements and protections they spell out. Some require all citizens to make a reasonable effort to help others in danger, while others only protect people who do so.

Florida’s own Good Samaritan Act is closer to the latter category. Its intended purpose is to increase the likelihood that a person in distress will receive the medical treatment they need, whether it comes from a professional or nearby layperson. The law is based on the idea that people might avoid offering help for fear of being sued if the situation does not turn out well.

It is debatable whether a significant amount of people have actually refused to render aid due to a fear of civil action. However, in case this does occur, the act clearly states that a person acting in good faith to help someone in an emergency cannot face civil penalties. In law, “good faith” means making a genuine effort to do something that can reasonably be expected to help.

This law only applies in emergency situations that require immediate treatment. If a patient is stable enough to wait for less rushed treatment, or denies the treatment offered, the person helping them may still be open to civil penalties. The law also does not protect medical workers who choose to ignore a medical emergency, or respond to an emergency in a way that they should have known would not help

That's why this World is not a save place to live anymore....because any Company or CEO's or wahterever!!! RULES THE WORLD.....and there's no RESPECT for human lifes EVERYTHING is a BUSSINESS right now,and that makes me SICK.

So I stand for lifeguard Lopez who did the right thing at the right time,that's what a LIFEGUARD IS PEOPLE.....

Can you say "Public relations disaster"?

Indiegogo.com - Donate to Tomas Lopez - reward for saving a man's life...run by Jeannie Cole...any donation is never too small....I think he deserves a small reward for doing the right thing!!

This guy should have NEVER been fired in the begin with. Every person involved with the decision to do so, should be fired themselves. This guy should have been awarded with a medal of honor. I have heard of a lot of weird things in the news but I have NEVER heard of someone getting fired for saving someone's LIFE. A life is something that can NEVER be replaced; no matter what. It is something that we take for granted. Now, suppose the person that was drowning was the OWNER and someone told the guy that the OWNER was in need of assistance, and in response the guy said he could not render assistance because of the policy. Would the guy have been fired for not rendering assistance to the OWNER.

In any event, this guy deserves more than just his job back, he also, deserves an award of good deed.

He would have been fired if he did nothing. He was in a lose lose position, but did the right thing by helping the guy. The company sounds like a joke that only cares about money.

Only in America... let me elaborate...

Only in zoo. Americans are like this stupid/retarded animals.

He did the right thing. He was in a position to save a man's life and he did it. I understand the company being upset that he left his area, and perhaps the correct response may be some training, but to fire him for saving a man -- a job he is trained to do? Not the right response.

Honestly, I see the reasoning behind the policy, but it is too short sighted in its scope. Furthermore, the city employing the company should be reviewing these rules and providing guidance, and perhaps some legal protection in the event something like this happens.

I mean really he tried to save someones life and you fire him over policy and restriction line of his going. That is very lame shame on the management company they should be let go a warning ok but if i were him and I was trained I would have saved a life to not gone by the rules. That lifegaurd needs to be promoted to a upscale position of honor as for the management company bye bye what if it was you drowning management company would you want him to still call 911 or save you. Wow bad choice firing him its ok lifeguard you will be promoted to an excellent position with allot of pay. Try marine control they need tons of guys like you.

Yeah! Tom has been vindicated. He did what was right, I would of done the same thing and no I would not take my job back, because the morons that run that office might forget to save my life one day, or get me killed. We need more people like Tom in the world, maybe our Government officials or say even the President can learn from what Tom did...I was speaking of compassion for a fellow person, something that is very hard for corporate and bankers and the Government. You see, that is the difference between us people and the so called eletes that run this country, we have compassion and they have just the ass in compassion.

Why would any of those young men want to go back to work for a company as ------ up as that? It is obvious the young lifeguards have a lot more common sense and integrity than the people they were working for.................. good show boys !

So we are all supposed to chew carefully before swallowing but if someone is choking to death in front of you

at a restaurant how many of us would feel it wasn't our problem or even consider sitting there & calling 911.

Most civilized human beings would instintually do what they could to help immediatly.

I really wish we could start identifying this "rules before humanity" mentality for the destructive force that it is.

There is really no excuse for it. Rules are guidelines to serve civilization not destroy it.