A 13-year-old boy is hailed a super human and a hero
A 13-year-old boy is hailed a super human and a hero after saving the lives of his mother and two younger siblings with a four-hour long swim in rough seas after the family was swept off the Australian coast.
The family was enjoying a day out kayaking and paddle boarding when the weather suddenly shifted and took them 4 kilometers (around 2.5 miles) into the middle of the ocean. For over 8 hours they were stuck with no one noticing they were missing and darkness was soon approaching.
That’s when the mother of a 13-year-old boy asked something of her eldest son… Could he swim to shore and try to get help. He accepted the challenge.
For the first two hours, he swam with a life jacket on, but he didn’t think he would make it in time, so he took it off and swam another two hours.
He said he tried to focus on positive thoughts as he swam for around four hours through rough seas for shore, raising the alarm at 6 p.m.
“The waves are massive and I have no life jacket on. … I just kept thinking ‘just keep swimming, just keep swimming,'” Austin said. “And then I finally I made it to shore and I hit the bottom of the beach and I just collapsed.”
He managed to alert authorities who sent out a rescue team that made it to the remaining family just in time. A search helicopter found the mom and two children clinging to a paddleboard. They had drifted 14 kilometers (9 miles) after spending up to 10 hours in the water.
“One of the hardest decisions I 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,'” the mother told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
She said she was confident he would reach shore but was filled with doubt as the sun set and help had not arrived.
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