SYDNEY: A 13-year-old boy has recounted how he swam for four hours through rough seas off Western Australia to raise the alarm after his family was swept out to sea, an act rescuers and police have described as “superhuman.”
The teenager, identified by local media as Austin Appelbee, swam about four kilometres (2.5 miles) to shore after his mother and two younger siblings were dragged further into the ocean while kayaking and paddle-boarding on Friday afternoon.
Austin had been on the water with his family when conditions deteriorated. Growing waves flipped their paddleboards and filled their kayak with water, pushing them away from shore and into open sea, according to AFP.
“I was really scared,” the boy told reporters on Tuesday. “I was just thinking in my head, like thinking I was going to make it through. But I was also thinking about all my friends at school, and friends at my Christian youth,” he said.
“I just said: ‘Alright, not today, not today, not today. I have to keep on going.” Wearing a life jacket at first, Austin began swimming toward the shoreline as his family remained behind. After struggling for hours, he made the decision to abandon the jacket so he could swim more freely.
“I was very puffed out, but I couldn’t feel how tired I was,” he said. To keep himself going, the teen said he focused on happy thoughts and even sang the theme song from Thomas the Tank Engine as waves crashed around him.
“At this time, you know, the waves are massive, and I have no life jacket on. So anyway, I just keep swimming. I do breaststroke. I do freestyle. Survival backstroke.”
When he finally reached the beach, the exhausted teen immediately called emergency services and urged them to launch a full-scale search. “My family is out at sea,” he told operators, asking for boats, helicopters, and planes to be deployed.
Marine rescue volunteer Paul Bresland said the boy’s determination was critical to the successful rescue. Austin’s mother and siblings were later found clinging to a paddleboard in open waters off the tourist town of Quindalup.
“He swam, he reckons, the first two hours with a life jacket on,” Bresland told national broadcaster ABC. “And the brave fella thought he was not going to make it with a life jacket on, so he ditched it, and he swam the next two hours without a life jacket.
“I thought, mate, that is incredible,” Bresland said, describing the effort as “superhuman.” Police Inspector James Bradley also praised the teen’s actions, saying they “cannot be praised highly enough.”
“His determination and courage ultimately saved the lives of his mother and siblings,” Bradley told ABC. The boy’s mother, identified in local media as Joanne, has also been commended for keeping her family alive during hours at sea with her other children — 12-year-old Beau and eight-year-old Grace.
“It seemed nice and calm to begin with,” she told reporters. “One of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make was to say to Austin: ‘Try and get to shore and get some help, this could get really serious really quickly,’” she said. As night fell, her fears intensified.
“As the sun went down, I thought: ‘Something’s gone terribly wrong here,’ and my fear was that Austin didn’t make it,” she said. “Everything goes through your head.”
