(PAWLEYS ISLAND, S.C.) — A Georgia father drowned after saving five people from a rip current at a beach in South Carolina, according to the Pawleys Island Police Department.
At approximately 4:45 p.m. on Sunday, police received a call for “multiple swimmers in distress” in Pawleys Island, South Carolina, and once on the scene, they discovered one person was missing and a “search was initiated.”
Then at approximately 6:15 p.m., the body of the missing person was found and identified as 38-year-old Chase Childers, officials said.
Officials later found out that Childers — a former professional baseball player for the Baltimore Orioles’ minor league team and police officer — and one other individual entered the water to help a family of five, with Childers getting “caught in the rip current.”
“He died trying to save others,” police said.
Childers’ family said in a statement that they are “devastated by the tragic loss of our beloved Chase Childers” and that the news feels “surreal, incredibly hard to grasp and profoundly unfair.”
His family described his death as a “heroic act,” where he paid the “highest sacrifice with his life in front of his three children and wife.”
“Word are hard to find at the moment,” the family said in a statement shared on social media.
Childers leaves behind three children and his wife, the family said. He would have turned 39 next month, his brother-in-law confirmed to ABC News.
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