If your family is in trouble and they need help, what do you do? Help them. That is the simple ethos that drove a 13-year-old boy credited with saving the lives of his mother and two younger siblings with a four-hour open ocean swim after the family was swept out to sea.
Austin Appelbee navigated through two and a half miles on his own to swim to shore along the rugged Australian coastline to raise the alarm after he got into difficulties on Friday with his mother Joanne Appelbee, 47, brother Beau, 12, and sister Grace, 8, police said.
AP reports Austin said he initially set off for help on an inflatable kayak that was taking water. He abandoned the sinking kayak then ditched his life jacket because it impeded his swimming as he strove for the shore to raise the alarm.
He said he tried to focus on positive thoughts as he swam for around four hours through rough seas eventually hitting land at 6 p.m. to call for help.
“The waves are massive and I have no life jacket on. … I just kept thinking ‘just keep swimming, just keep swimming,’” Austin said on Tuesday, per the AP report. “And then I finally I made it to shore and I hit the bottom of the beach and I just collapsed.”
Austin said he then ran as fast as he could to find a phone to call emergency services.
The rough terrain and muscle fatigue has since left him on crutches as he regains his strength.
The family, from the Western Australia state capital Perth, were on vacation and were using kayaks and paddle boards hired from their hotel around noon when rough ocean and wind conditions started dragging them out to sea.
They had planned to be out for an hour, leaving their picnic rug on the beach and taking no water or food with them.
A search helicopter eventually found the mom and two children wearing life jackets and clinging to a paddleboard at 8:30 p.m., police said.
They had drifted nine miles offshore from Quindalup in the state after spending up to 10 hours struggling in the water.
“The actions of the 13-year-old boy cannot be praised highly enough — his determination and courage ultimately saved the lives of his mother and siblings,” Police Inspector James Bradley said.
Joanne Appelbee told reporters she sent her oldest child for help because she could not leave the three children.
Something had to be done and her teenage son was just the person for the task.
Remote waters off Geographe Bay, Dunsborough, Western Australia provided the backdrop to the heroic swim by young Austin Appelbee who saved his family from disaster. (Auscape/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
“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,‘” she told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
With those words of encouragement to drive him, the teenager made it through adversity.
All to save his family from disaster.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
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