Australian police hailed a 13-year-old boy this Tuesday, February 3, as a hero who swam for four hours to alert rescuers and save his mother and two brothers who were adrift at sea.
The feat happened on Friday, when Austin Appelbee went on a paddle and kayak trip with his mother and brothers off Quindalup, about 250 kilometers south of Perth, in the state of Western Australia.
The family planned to only be away for an hour and left their picnic blanket on the beach, without taking water or food, heading out to sea in the morning in apparently calm conditions.
However, they quickly ran into difficulties when the sea became rough, causing the kayak to capsize and fill with water, as they began to be pushed offshore.
Faced with danger, the mother, Joanne Appelbee, 47, made the difficult decision to send her eldest son in search of help, leaving her with Beau, 12, and Grace, 8.
“It was one of the most difficult decisions I’ve ever had to make”, confessed Joanne Appelbee to Australian television ABC, cited by the news agency The Associated Press (AP).
“I told Austin, ‘Try to get to shore and get help. This could get very serious very quickly,'” he said.
Joanne Appelbee told ABC that she knew Austin “was the strongest and that he was capable of doing it.”
“I would never have gone because I wouldn’t leave the children in the sea, so I had to send someone,” he said.
The young man started the journey in an inflatable kayak, but it began to take on water, deciding to swim about four kilometers and taking off his life jacket, which was making his movements difficult, in order to reach dry land more quickly.
“I was very scared,” he told journalists today, according to France-Presse (AFP). “I just thought I would make it. But I also thought about all my friends at school”, he admitted.
The young man described that, during the journey, he tried to keep thinking about positive things and He even sang the theme of a cartoon to stay focused.
“The waves were gigantic and I wasn’t wearing a vest. I just thought ‘keep swimming, keep swimming’ (…). I continued to swim face down, ‘crawl’ and on my back”, said the boy. “When I finally reached the beach and hit the bottom with my feet, I collapsed,” he reported.
While Austin swam, his mother and two younger brothers stuck together, singing and telling jokes to maintain optimism, until sunset, when conditions became more critical.
After Austin hits the beach and alerts authorities, a search helicopter located the mother and brothers around 8:30 pm (local time), equipped with vests and clinging to a paddle board.
They had drifted 14 kilometers and spent about 10 hours in the water.
Despite showing signs of hypothermia at the time of rescue, the four family members were clinically evaluated and none required hospital admission.
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