A 10-year-old was struggling to stay above water when a stranger at beach became her hero

Teacher Who Saved a Drowning Child at Myrtle Beach Found Dead a Day Later

Healfromzero.com – A rip current dragged a 10-year-old girl more than 30 yards beyond the breaking waves on a South Carolina shoreline, and the only person who reached her in time was a man she had never met. Derrick Moore, a 47-year-old elementary school teacher from Georgia, plunged into the ocean to pull Summer McCallum back to safety. He succeeded. He did not come back.

Moore’s body was recovered from the surf zone on August 8, according to the Myrtle Beach Police Department — roughly a full day after the rescue. The tragedy unfolded during what had been intended as a quiet family outing, and it left behind a community in shock, a grieving family, and a young girl whose life now carries the weight of a stranger’s final act.

The Trip and the Turning Point

Summer McCallum had traveled to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, with her uncle, Ernest McCallum, on a trip he organized to mark the sixth anniversary of her father’s death. The afternoon had been unremarkable until the sun began its descent and the water shifted. McCallum, watching from the shallows, glanced back toward the open ocean and saw his niece’s head dipping beneath the surface, rising, dipping again. He sprinted into the water without a moment’s pause.

He was not the only one moving. Moore, who had been on the beach enjoying a pre-summer break day before the new school year, heard the cry and followed immediately. McCallum hit the water and pushed himself toward his niece, but the current seized him, pulled him under, and swept him away. When he broke the surface again, he saw the stranger already beside Summer. He made it back to shore and returned with several other men carrying boogie boards to complete the rescue. By the time the group reached the girl, Moore was gone.

Summer later told her uncle that the man had instructed her to grip his arm. As the other rescuers closed in, he pushed her toward them so they could haul her to safety. He did not surface again.

A Life Built Around Children

Moore taught at Rockbridge Elementary School outside Atlanta, where students affectionately called him “Coach.” Before that, he spent years at Jolly Elementary School, also near Atlanta, where he was named the 2024 teacher of the year. His brother, Kameron Glasper, recalled that many students at Jolly loved soccer. Moore had never played or coached the sport himself, yet he founded a team so the children would have an extracurricular activity of their own.

Colleagues described a man whose warmth was almost disarming. Sherry Weeks, a fellow educator, characterized him as an “energetic, polite, special hero” who “did anything and everything with a smile.” His mother, Suzette Moore, remembered a boy so open and trusting that she once took him to the police department to be fingerprinted, worried a stranger might simply walk away with him. She called him a “free spirit” who loved people with an intensity that set him apart.

The Call from St. Louis

When the rescue happened, Suzette Moore was hundreds of miles away, visiting St. Louis. Her son’s fiancée reached her with the news: Derrick had gone missing while trying to save a little girl in the ocean. Suzette threw her hands upward and prayed she would see her son again. For those who knew him, the impulse to jump into the water for a stranger was not surprising. It was, in their telling, simply who he was.

What Remains

Ernest McCallum said Moore saved not only Summer’s life but his own as well. McCallum explained that he would have stopped at nothing to reach his niece, even at the cost of his own life. Moore’s intervention meant that choice never had to be made.

“He was a hero before that day. He was a hero to his family, his kids, his daddy, his mama, his family. He was a hero then. He just became a hero to everybody else on Friday,” McCallum said.

Summer, now back in Georgia, has not fully grasped the permanence of what happened, though she has already endured several family deaths in recent years and knows grief intimately. Speaking to a local news affiliate, she held her uncle’s hand and offered a message she wished she could deliver directly to Moore:

“Thank you, I really owe my life to you.”

“I get to go back to school and love my family more than I did,” she added, visibly holding back tears.

McCallum said he wanted to reach out to Moore’s family to express gratitude and to learn more about the man who gave everything in a single afternoon. Moore leaves behind four children, a mother, a brother, and a community of former students who remember a teacher who started a soccer team he had never played, who answered every cry for help, and who, on one August day, answered the loudest one of all.