Courtesy of NBC News 4 New York Undated photo of Dylan Smith, who died off Puerto Rico.

The Belle Harbor section of the Rockaways in New York, where so many heroes emerged during Superstorm Sandy, has lost one of them to a tragic surfing death in Puerto Rico.

Friends of 23-year-old Dylan Smith and his family expressed sorrow Monday that someone who saved so many lives during the October storm could lose his own on vacation. A local funeral parlor said funeral arrangements were being made.

The New York City lifeguard was widely praised after the storm for using his surfboard to move several Queens neighbors endangered by high water and a fire to safety.

Smith's body was found floating Sunday morning near his surfboard in waters off Maria's Beach in the western Puerto Rican community of Rincon. The town's beaches attract surfers from across the world.

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