Some rescues begin with a crew, a surfboat and a practiced plan. This one began with a single surfman on a dark beach, a wreck breaking apart in hurricane-driven seas and ten people who were running out of time.
During the night of August 17–18, 1899, Rasmus S. Midgett of the U.S. Life-Saving Service was patrolling the Outer Banks of North Carolina near the Gull Shoal Life-Saving Station. The San Ciriaco hurricane had battered the coast with violent wind, heavy rain and flooded sands. Somewhere through the storm, Midgett heard men calling from the sea.
A ship in the breakers
The cries led him to the Priscilla, a 643-ton barkentine that had been driven ashore roughly 100 yards from the beach. The ship was stranded in the surf and beginning to come apart. Survivors clung to what remained while waves crashed over the hull.
Midgett faced a brutal decision. The wreck lay about three miles south of his station. Returning for the full life-saving crew and equipment would take hours, and the men aboard the Priscilla might not survive the wait. Attempting the rescue alone meant entering hurricane surf without a boat, a line or anyone to pull him back if the sea took him.
He chose to act.
Seven trips into the surf
Midgett studied the movement of the waves and used the brief moments when the water pulled back. He moved as close to the wreck as the surf allowed and called for the sailors to jump one at a time.
As each man entered the water, Midgett seized him and fought his way back toward the higher sand. He repeated the process again and again. Seven men made the jump. Seven times Midgett brought a survivor out of the breakers.
But the rescue was not finished.
Three men could not jump
Three survivors remained aboard the wreck. They were too injured and exhausted to make the leap or cross the surf under their own power. Reaching them required Midgett to go closer to the shattered vessel, climb onto it and bring each man down himself.
He returned to the wreck three more times. On every trip, he lifted a helpless man, carried him into the water and dragged him through the surf to safety. The storm could have swept away rescuer and survivor together, but Midgett completed all three trips.
Ten people were now alive on the beach because one surfman refused to leave them to the sea.
After the rescue
The seven men who could still walk were sent toward the Gull Shoal station. Midgett placed the three injured survivors in a safer location, gave his own coat to Captain Springsteen of the Priscilla and then went ahead to summon his fellow surfmen. Horses and carts were sent to retrieve the injured men, and the station was prepared to receive the castaways.
For his extraordinary courage and judgment, Rasmus Midgett was awarded the Gold Life-Saving Medal. The official Coast Guard account remembers the ten lives as the lasting evidence of his valor.
The service before the Coast Guard
The U.S. Life-Saving Service maintained stations along dangerous stretches of the American coast. Its surfmen walked beach patrols, watched for vessels in distress and launched into conditions that had already proven powerful enough to destroy ships.
In 1915, the Life-Saving Service and the Revenue Cutter Service were combined to form the modern United States Coast Guard. The equipment has changed—from beach patrols and oar-powered surfboats to motor lifeboats, cutters and aircraft—but the purpose remains recognizable: protect people from the perils of the sea.
Why the story still matters
Midgett did not have the advantage of modern rescue gear. He had experience, an understanding of the surf and the willingness to accept enormous personal risk for strangers. His story is not simply about physical strength. It is about making the right decision when every available choice carries danger.
That heritage lives in every small-boat crew that gets underway in bad weather, every watchstander who answers a distress call and every mariner who turns toward someone in trouble.
Fair Winds Clothing was built around those stories—the traditions, humor and hard-earned pride carried by people who serve and work on the water. Explore our Coast Guard & Navy collection, created for the crews and families who understand that connection.
Sources and further reading: U.S. Coast Guard Historian’s Office and Cape Hatteras National Seashore.
Continue the voyage
Rasmus Midgett’s rescue belongs to a much larger service tradition. Explore Coast Guard traditions and history, compare another legendary sea-service story in John Paul Jones and the battle behind the legend, or read about Coast Guard life and culture.
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