Ocean rescue on the Outer Banks: Continuing a strong tradition
- Corinne Saunders
- Jun 27
- 5 min read
A Town of Kill Devil Hills Ocean Rescue truck is seen at Ocean Bay Boulevard Beach Access in Kill Devil Hills. (Photo by Corinne Saunders)
By Corinne Saunders
Edited by Matt Walker
Editor’s Note: A version of this article originally appeared in the summer issue (Issue 15.2) of Outer Banks Milepost, currently on newsstands; find a list of distribution points by clicking here: https://www.outerbanksmilepost.com/outposts/. This article was No. 1 in the issue’s series, “America’s Pride: Five things the Outer Banks does better than just about anywhere.”
Shifting sandbars. Relentless winds. Erratic weather. The turbulent waters off the Outer Banks have claimed thousands of vessels and threatened countless lives throughout history. Fortunately, a steadfast supply of courageous souls have stood ready to dive into the fray.
Brave men like Richard Etheridge, the first African American to command a United States Life-Saving Service (USLSS) station. His legendary Pea Island Lifesavers on Oct. 11, 1896, pulled ashore the entire nine-person crew of the E.S. Newman, swimming out to the wreck and back mid-storm, using nothing but ropes and floats.
One hundred years later, those surfmen were posthumously awarded the prestigious Gold Lifesaving Medal. And that’s just one of the hundreds of daring rescues credited to Etheridge’s crew—and a fraction of the 177,000 rescues collectively credited to the USLSS between 1871 and 1915, when it officially became part of the U.S. Coast Guard.
“These men performed incredible acts of bravery in incredibly dangerous conditions,” says Joan Collins of the Pea Island Preservation Society, Inc., whose family line boasts 400 years of continuous combined service in the USLSS and Coast Guard. “And when there was no motorized equipment to aid them.”
Larry Grubbs, president of the Chicamacomico Historical Association Board of Directors, and Joan Collins, at the time representing the Pea Island Preservation Society, Inc., smile during the Dare A250 Faire on Saturday, April 18, 2026, in downtown Manteo. Chicamacomico and Pea Island were two of the United States Life-Saving Service stations located across the Outer Banks prior to the establishment of the U.S. Coast Guard. (Photo by Corinne Saunders)
Today, Outer Banks lifeguards protect millions of visitors making happy memories on sunny days, using a wide range of methods.
The Hatteras Island Rescue Squad regularly patrols 30 miles of beach between Ramp 30 and Hatteras Inlet, relying on a mix of 4WDs and PWCs—aka “personal water craft”—plus cell phones, walkie-talkies and an almost all-volunteer crew.
“It’s just very local based and like on call as needed,” says Molly Greenwood, the squad’s water rescue captain. “We have members that live in each village on Hatteras Island, and they respond from their house and actually perform the rescues.”
Founded in 1980, with water rescue launched in 1985, the all-volunteer squad expanded beginning in 2014 to include paid staff on certain days. All told, they respond to over two dozen 911 calls each summer month—plus 15 to 20 unpaged water rescues each week—often in record times.
“We haven’t had any reportable drownings in the past couple of years,” Greenwood says. “We did have a medical emergency in the water last year…but I’d say our success rate is pretty high. Our response time is less than four minutes.”
Up in town, paid lifeguard services keep watch from strategically placed stands at many accesses during the high season. But they work just as hard between shifts to stay top-notch, from excelling in national and regional lifeguarding competitions—the Outer Banks Group finished fourth in the U.S. a few years back—to promoting more awareness about our beaches’ inherent risks.
Frustrated by the misinformation swirling around rip currents, Kill Devil Hills Ocean Rescue Supervisor David Elder spearheaded two key public awareness ideas. First, he helped design red and yellow flags that read, “Dangerous Current,” which notify beachgoers of existing rips; next, he pitched the idea of predicting rips and worked with the National Weather Service as it developed a computer model that warns when conditions are ripe for the deadly currents to form.
A Rip Current Risk forecast is now prominently displayed in National Weather Service information and is sent out locally through Dare County’s “Love the Beach, Respect the Ocean” campaign. Elder says that may explain why KDH’s rescue numbers—which reached the high 700s some summers—has now dropped by more than half.
Furthermore, “less than 1% of the people we pulled out of the water have needed emergency medical care,” Elder says.
But water safety isn’t just about the visitors. All year long, local surfers frolic in heaving seas. That’s why longtime lifeguard Bri Young brought the Big Wave Risk Assessment Group (BWRAG) to the area for the first time three years ago.
Born along Hawaii’s outer reefs, where surfers often use PWCs to tackle giant waves, BWRAG offers regional workshops to help make sure surfers don’t get in over their heads in waves of consequence. As more local thrill-seekers began using PWCs on the heaviest days, Young figured hosting a class here made sense.
“I had taken the class before in Puerto Rico, and I just have a passion and a crazy love for big wave surfing and the safety around it,” says Young, who boasts 15 years of lifeguarding experience and now runs Outer Banks Water Safety and provides ocean rescue for the Town of Duck.
Since then, REAL Watersports hosted another summit. Young sees it as just another step in the Outer Banks’ collective effort to keep local waters as risk-free as possible.
“Since I first started guarding when I was 16…education and ocean safety have gotten so much better,” she says.
But the area hasn’t forgotten its history. Head south to Chicamacomico Life-Saving Station Historic Site and Museum on a summertime Thursday and you can watch weekly reenactments of breeches buoy drills.
During the 19th and 20th centuries, surfmen would use a Lyle gun to shoot a projectile with a rope connected into a foundering ship; then, they’d use what was essentially a life preserver ring with the addition of a shorts-looking section to carry a person by a rope and pulley system—collectively called a beach apparatus—in the air from a boat to dry land.
According to the site, “The beach apparatus was the preferred method of rescue...as it was much safer than launching surfboats into violent, storm-tossed seas.”
A century later, Chicamacomico is about the only place you can still see the beach apparatus in action. Between Memorial Day and Labor Day, volunteers put on a dramatic recreation every Thursday at 2 p.m.—the same day and time that lifesavers historically ran their own weekly drills all across America’s shores.
“It’s an event that happened all over the nation,” says Site Manager Dinah Beveridge.
“The beach apparatus was the preferred method of rescue...as it was much safer than launching surfboats into violent, storm-tossed seas.”
But past or present—Great Lakes or Gulf Coast—training hard, promoting awareness and mitigating risks ahead of time remain paramount to America’s rescue teams.
“The majority of lifeguarding isn’t necessary that heroic stuff where you’re making rescues,” opines Chad Motz, captain of Nags Head Ocean Rescue. “Ninety percent of what we do is public outreach and communication…and preventing those incidents before they happen.”
The top tip across the board? Swim near a lifeguard.
The U.S. Lifesaving Association (USLA), a nonprofit association of lifeguards and open-water rescuers, calculates the chance of a person fatally drowning at a beach protected by USLA-affiliated lifeguards at 1 in 18 million.
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