A surfer and his friends helped rescue a young woman Tuesday afternoon after she jumped from the end of the Jacksonville Beach Pier, plunging into roiling, white-tipped waves.

Surfer Ty Miller grabbed the limp woman and pulled her onto his long-board about 30 yards south of the pier.

Somehow the woman apparently slipped past the locked entry gate and was seen sitting on the guard rail for hours.

At the foot of the pier and below on the beach and nearby boardwalks, hundreds of people came to watch the Hurricane Dorian waves and the extraordinary surfing conditions.

Surfer Tyler Sebring noticed the woman sitting on the guard rail, her legs dangling over. He kept trying to get a better look at her and to talk to her from the water below. "Are you OK?" he called out.

She was crying.

Sebring said every time he called to her he felt she was getting closer to the edge. He assured her everything would be OK.

Sebring got Miller's attention, motioning for him to keep an eye on the woman overheard. He then raced to shore to borrow a cellphone and called Ocean Rescue.

As Ocean Rescue vehicles came blaring down the beach from both directions, the woman jumped into the rough seas below. She went limp.

Dozens of beach-goers raced to the south of the pier as Jacksonville Beach lifeguards Tommy Cassaro and Alexander Seward carried the woman to shore.

"It was all of us," said Miller, when congratulated by Ocean Rescue personnel and beach-goers for being the first person to get to the woman.

Ocean Rescue workers lifted the woman onto the back of a pickup truck and began giving her oxygen and monitoring her vital signs. The woman's chest heaved as she began sucking in big gulps of oxygen.

After Ocean Rescue raced off with the woman, another rescue vehicle headed down the beach, warning people the beaches are closed and to stay out of the water.

The rescue was the first that Ocean Rescue had to do Tuesday, a day when at least 50 surfers were spotted riding the waves around the pier.

Eli Phillips, a lieutenant with Ocean Rescue, said lifeguards ran up and down the beach until sundown Monday urging people to stay out of the dangerous surf.

Tuesday was likely going to be a repeat even though the beaches are supposed to be closed until Hurricane Dorian passes.

By 4 p.m. at least 50 people — not including surfers — who were in the water came ashore after Ocean Rescue asked them to do so, Phillips said. Lifeguards had to swim out to three people who ignored the requests broadcast from megaphones to get out of the water.

Phillips said it's frustrating when rules are ignored. "It puts other people at risk," he said. "If we do call you and warn you, please listen."

As for the dozens of surfers and kiteboarders, Phillips had this to say: "We just have to trust that they were skilled enough to get out there and they will be skilled enough to get back."

Eileen Kelley: (904) 359-4104