A 23-YEAR-OLD hero lifeguard from Queens — who used his surfboard to help save six lives as superstorm Sandy raged — drowned on Sunday in a surfing accident in Puerto Rico.

The body of Dylan Smith, 23, was found Sunday morning floating near his beloved surfboard in the Caribbean, off the popular resort Maria’s Beach near Rincon on the western coast of Puerto Rico, police officials said.

“The same sport — the sport of surfing — that he used to save all those people, it’s so shocking that he perished that way,” said FDNY Chief Michael Light, a family friend who had known Smith since he was a  baby.

 

 

Acting with split-second timing and risking his own life, Smith and another selfless Belle Harbor man attached a homemade rope bridge to his surfboard on Oct. 29 and yanked a group of stranded victims to safety in the Rockaways.

The Sandy rescue was an act of daring so bold that it won Smith and 51-year-old Michael McDonnell honors in People’s Dec. 6 issue as one of the magazine’s “2012 Heroes of the Year.”

Light, 48, from Battalion 37 in Brooklyn, said Smith was an “absolute hero” who worked tirelessly to help his neighbors clean up, rebuild and return to their homes after the storm.

The young man who put his personal safety in peril to save others was passionate about surfing and “wanted to blow off some steam” in Puerto Rico, Light said. “So he took a little vacation just to unwind,” he added.

 

 

An area resident spotted the surfer in the water and pulled him to shore, but a doctor who struggled to revive him detected no signs of life, authorities said.

Ryan Moroney, 22, Smith’s cousin, said the surfer was a superhero. “He was Aquaman,” Moroney said. “If you were in need, Dylan would be there to help, hands down, no questions asked. ... His passions were to just go out and enjoy life — and anything anybody needed, he was always there.”

That heroic instinct was on display when Sandy’s terrifying power was at its most lethal — and a towering storm surge barreled into Beach 130th St. even as fast-racing flames were incinerating parts of the block.

Six trapped neighbors, ringed by the treacherous  waters, huddled on a porch, hanging on for dear life as Sandy threatened to sweep them away.

That’s when McDonnell and Smith flew into action: The older man jury-rigged a safety rope from electric wire and twine and his younger friend helped fasten it to his surfboard, and together they ferried their six stranded neighbors to higher ground  across the street.

In an exclusive interview with the Daily News on Dec. 15, a modest Smith played down his own heroics and talked up McDonnell’s lifesaving skills.

Asked if he was a hero, Smith replied, “I don’t really see it that way. ... I was doing it to help Mike out. I did what I was asked to do.”

When people approached him on the street, he would ask to be left alone, he told The News.

“I don’t want to talk about me,” he explained. “I don’t think I’m a hero. Absolutely not. I justdid what I was trained to. I’ma lifeguard. I surf. This is what Ido.”

But rescued Rockaway resident Jim DiBenedetto, 59, saw it very differently.

“They certainly deserve to be called heroes,” DiBenedetto said on Dec. 15. “They came in with so much confidence.  .  . Mike said we were going to tie a rope, and Dylan came out of nowhere with the surfboard and helped people get across the street to safety.”

Smith’s mother and father declined to speak on Sunday night.

But FDNY Chief Light spoke for the family and friends of the fallen hero when he told The News: “He was a wonderful young man with a bright future and so much to offer ...

“He had a lot of friends, a lot of people who loved him, and it’s a shame that he was taken away from us far too soon.”