On Sunday, July 13, 2025, a group of swimmers off the island were caught in two currents at once. One ran along the shore, and a strong rip current pulled straight out.

Several of them were stuck in the crosscurrent about 150 feet from the beach. They were calling for help.

A hundred and fifty feet is half a football field. Chase Childers was on the beach with his wife and their three young children. He was 38, a contractor from Dallas, Georgia.

It was a Sunday afternoon at the beach.

Years earlier, he had been a police officer in Cobb County, Georgia. Before that, he had played baseball in the Baltimore Orioles’ minor league system.

He heard the calls. He ran into the ocean. He swam out past some of the people who were struggling in the crosscurrent. Police later concluded he may have believed another person was in danger. The record does not say who.

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Another man on the beach saw how urgently Childers had gone in. He went in after him. When that man reached Childers, Childers was not responding.

He tried to tow him toward shore. The surf was rough, and the two of them were pulled apart. Police got the call at about 4:45 p.m. Callers reported multiple swimmers in distress and one person missing.

Every one of the struggling swimmers made it back to the beach. So did the man who had reached Childers.

Childers did not. His wife and children were on the beach while it happened.

Police, firefighters, the Coast Guard, and a sheriff’s marine unit searched the water. He was found at about 6:15 p.m., a long way from where he had last been seen.

He had drowned. He would have turned 39 the next month. He left his wife and their three children.

In 2026, he was awarded the Carnegie Medal after his death. It is given to civilians in the United States and Canada who enter extreme danger to save or try to save the lives of others.

News reports at the time said he saved a family of five. The commission was more careful, finding that he died trying to save people it could not identify. What the record shows is the order of events. He heard the calls, he went in first, and another man followed him.

After his death, the town’s mayor said Pawleys Island would look for ways to prevent more drownings, including teaching visitors about rip currents.

If you were on the sand with your wife and three children and heard strangers calling for help 150 feet out, would you have run toward them?