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Susan Midgett did in less than an hour what several dozen others tried to do many years ago when they took the plunge but failed miserably to accomplish.

Midgett, featured in a story last May about her effort to raise money to build a medical-dental clinic at an orphanage in Haiti, has kept her word.

She’s back from San Francisco where she raised awareness for her cause by swimming in the annual “Escape from Alcatraz” race in frigid San Francisco Bay.

Last month, she stroked the mile and a half from island to mainland in less than an hour.

Not bad for a mother of two in her mid-40s who hadn’t done any serious swimming since her youth when she was a lifeguard and swimming instructor.

She trained by doing laps in the Lake Jeannette Club pool near her Northern Shores home.

She says she was nervous hitting the water off Alcatraz Island, where the prison-turned-tourist-attraction stands .

Once in the cold, choppy waters, her butterflies left for warmer digs, and she gained confidence.

“I had no doubt I would make it.”

Her husband and two children waited, though they failed to see her when she entered the narrow entrance to the beach on the mainland. All swimmers tend to look alike.

That was perhaps the trickiest part of the race.

Lots of swimmers tried to squeeze into the opening while the fierce currents pushed them away.

But she made it, to the cheers of strangers on the beach who celebrated just as loudly for those who made the swim in no time as they did for those who struggled to complete the race.

Finishing was an accomplishment.

Some didn’t, and boats picked them up.

Alcatraz was the federal government’s most feared prison from 1934 to 1963, the place where Uncle Sam put away the likes of Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly and the Birdman of Alcatraz, who, despite a sympathetic movie years ago, was a mean guy.

It is said 30 inmates tried to escape from Alcatraz. Federal authorities insist no one succeeded.

They say 23 prisoners drowned, six were shot dead in the water, and two were never heard from again. Officials are convinced those two drowned. Bits and pieces of their clothes were found in the bay.

Midgett had advantages over the bad guys.

She didn’t have to dig tunnels or scale prison walls or duck spotlights to get to water’s edge.

Prisoners also lacked the wet suits Midgett and most other swimmers wore to ward off the chill.

During a tour of the prison, she was told one inmate planned for the cold by putting on layers of clothes, which, she says, “did nothing but weigh him down.”

Well, no one ever claimed Alcatraz inmates were brilliant or that they spent their childhoods hanging around the Y pool.

Throughout the race, Midgett was mentally swimming from one island to another — Alcatraz to Haiti, thousands of miles away.

She is trying to raise money for Vilaj Espwa, called an orphanage although it doesn’t adopt out children. The 600 children there occupy 1,000 acres, bought 11 years ago by a Catholic priest.

It’s a safe haven for children — and outside adults too — to escape the crime and squalor of Haiti. They go for training, daily meals, health care and to sleep in a clean place — for free.

The priest relies on contributions.

Midgett, who visited Vilaj Espwa earlier this year, was shocked that a former chicken house served as the medical-dentist clinic.

She came home determined to raise money to build a new clinic.

She started making speeches to civic clubs and churches and writing letters of appeal.

She decided to call attention to the cause by swimming from Alcatraz.

She has raised $80,000 of her $100,000 goal, she says. Twenty grand seems huge in this time of frugality caused by economic hard times. But she’s as convinced of success as she was of making it from Alcatraz to the mainline.

Another of her goals is to prove the truth of that old saying that one person can make a difference, she says.

“There is just so much need out there.”

Contact Jim Schlosser at 601-9879 or beale1@clearwire.net