The south Florida lifeguard fired for leaving his post so he could save a swimmer outside his coverage zone said Thursday he has been offered his job back.

But Tomas Lopez told CNN he does not plan to return to work.

"It's another chapter in my life closed and I am just going to continue to get my schooling finished and get on with my career," Lopez told CNN.

The 21-year-old said his phone has been ringing off the hook with journalists trying to get his side of the story.

Jeff Ellis Management, the company for which Lopez worked, had said lifeguards cannot go beyond the perimeter of the beach they are responsible for overseeing.

Jeff Ellis told CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront" on Thursday evening that he didn't approve of the decision to fire Lopez.

"Clearly, he should not have been terminated for what had occurred," Ellis said. "I know that he has tried to do the right thing."

Three other lifeguards quit in protest and two others were dismissed after saying they would have acted as Lopez did.

"They told us we would be liabilities and we had to be let go," lifeguard Travis Madrid told CNN.

Ellis told CNN the company has offered to bring back those who were let go.

Ellis told the Sun Sentinel newspaper he confirmed that no area of the beach was left unattended while Lopez assisted the swimmer.

The incident occurred Monday at Hallandale Beach in on Florida's Atlantic coast, north of Miami.

A beachgoer rushed to Lopez's lifeguard station to alert him to a man who was drowning.

The man was some 1,500 feet outside the company's protection zone in an area where signs warn visitors to swim at their own risk, a supervisor with the company told CNN affiliate WPTV.

Even though he knew it was outside the company protection zone, Lopez ran into the ocean toward the struggling man and pulled him ashore. The man, he said, had turned blue.

"He was having a lot of trouble breathing," Lopez said.

A nurse at the beach tended to the victim until emergency medics arrived and rushed him to a hospital.

The man was in good condition Thursday, according to Aventura Hospital.

Lifeguard Szilard Janko said he guarded Lopez's zone while the latter aided the swimmer.

"They let him go after he performed the rescue," Janko said. "They fired him basically on the spot."