‘I don’t think I am a hero’: Boy, 13, describes ‘superhuman’ swim to save family
The 13-year-old Australian boy who swam for hours to get help for his family after they were swept out to sea has told the BBC “I didn’t think I was a hero – I just did what I did”.
Austin Appelbee didn’t know if his mother Joanne, brother Beau and sister Grace were still alive when he finally reached the shore, four hours after he left them in the water clinging to two paddleboards.
Miles out to sea off Australia’s west coast – the waves getting bigger, the light beginning to fade – his mother feared he too may not have made it.
Only hours later, after Joanne finally spotted the rescue boat, did she know he was safe. By that time she and the children had drifted 14km (8.5 miles) offshore
What had started as a family day at the beach had ended in a 10-hour ordeal for Joanne and her family. Austin’s swim to raise the alarm was later described as “superhuman” by rescuers.
“I had assumed Austin hadn’t made it,” Joanne, 47, told the BBC News channel.
In the end though, “it was an absolute perfect ending to have them all well and happy and sore but no injuries
‘A tough battle’
The family had been due to head home to Perth last Friday and were having “a bit of fun” with two paddleboards and a kayak in the shallow water off the beach, Joanne explained, when the children “went out a bit too far”.
“The wind picked up and it went from there,” she recalled. “We lost oars, and we drifted out further…. It kind of all went wrong very, very quickly.”
Finding themselves drifting further and further out from Quindalup beach, in Western Australia, Joanne realised she needed to do something – but she couldn’t leave Beau, 12, and Grace, eight, alone.
“Early on, we sent this young man back in to try and get help because it didn’t look like we were that far from the shoreline,” she said.
Austin took the kayak, but no one realised it had been badly damaged and was already taking on water.
“It started flipping, and then I lost an oar and I knew I was in trouble,” he recalled. “I started paddling with my arm.”
At one point, he managed to get the kayak to work – before it threw him for the last time.
Clinging to the capsized kayak, Austin – who swears he “saw something in the water” – realised he needed to do something.
“It was getting dangerous now – I had been out for a couple of hours.”