Former Baltimore Orioles prospect Chase Childers dies saving swimmers in South Carolina

A one-time police officer and former Baltimore Orioles minor leaguer died over the weekend helping to rescue swimmers caught in a rip current off the South Carolina coast.

A one-time police officer and former Baltimore Orioles minor leaguer died over the weekend helping to rescue swimmers caught in a rip current off the South Carolina coast, officials said Thursday.

Anderson "Chase" Childers, 38, "lost his life this past weekend in South Carolina while selflessly saving others," his former employers with the Cobb County Police Department in Georgia said in a statement.

Childers was a "devoted husband and father" who "displayed extraordinary courage and selflessness in his last moments," according to his alma mater, Georgia State University.

The tragedy unfolded at about 4:45 p.m. Sunday in Pawleys Island, South Carolina, about 25 miles south of Myrtle Beach.

Childers and one other person jumped into the water to help four or five swimmers "who were in distress," police said.