The second excited state (J&pgr;= 1/2+,l= 0) of the proton‐rich nucleus19Na has been observed for the first time using the elastic scattering reaction18Ne+p in inverse kinematics. An intense (4 × 106pps)18Ne radioactive beam was produced at the Radioactive Beam Facility at Louvain‐la‐Neuve to bombard a polyethylene target. The recoil protons were detected at 20 different angles in the LEDA segmented silicon detector. The resulting elastic scattering cross sections have been analysed using theR‐matrix method. We find that the second excited state in19Na lies at the center‐of‐mass energyEc.m.= 1.066 ± 0.003 MeV with respect to the18Ne+p threshold, and has a proton width &Ggr;p= 101 ± 3 keV. The Coulomb shift between the 1/2+mirror levels in19O and19Na is 0.73 MeV, among the largest values currently observed in light exotic nuclei. © 2003 American Institute of Physics