Austin Appelbee says he feared the worst after four-hour swim to save his family: ‘I thought they were dead’
A 13-year-old boy who swam for hours to get help after his family was swept out to sea said he feared the worst while recovering in hospital, saying: “I thought they were dead.”
Austin Appelbee’s marathon swim began when a kayaking and paddleboarding outing in Geographe Bay near Quindalup in southwestern Australia turned dangerous as the winds strengthened and the waves surged.
The family from Perth – Austin, his mother Joanne, 47, and siblings Beau, 12, and Grace, 8 – were pushed further from shore and eventually drifted about 14km out.
The extraordinary tale of how the family survived thanks to Austin’s four-hour swim to shore has received huge media attention in a whirlwind few days since the incident on Friday, with local leaders hailing him as a “true hero”.
In a series of interviews, Austin and his mother have recalled their ordeal in blow-by-blow detail, with Ms Appelbee describing the choice to send the 13-year-old to get help as “one of the hardest decisions I ever had to make”.
Ms Appelbee recalled watching her son disappear towards the horizon. “I knew he was the strongest and he could do it,” she told ABC.
“I would have never went because I wouldn’t have left the kids at sea, so I had to send somebody.”
Officials have said Austin set off back to shore in the family’s kayak, then swam for around two hours in a life jacket and finally ditched the jacket for the last two hours.
Austin explained why he abandoned first the kayak, and then his life jacket, telling The West Australian: “I knew it would be a long way, but the kayak kept taking on water. I was fighting rough seas, the kayak dumped me a million times, I thought I saw something in the water and I was really scared but I was just thinking I was going to make it.”
He said the life jacket was making it difficult for him to swim, so he decided he’d be better off without it. “The waves are massive and I’ve no life jacket on,” he recalled.
“I just said, ‘All right, not today, not today, not today.’ I have to keep on going,” he said. “I was very puffed out but I couldn’t feel how tired I was.”
“I just kept thinking, just keep swimming, just keep swimming. And then I finally made it to shore and I hit the bottom of the beach and I just collapsed.”
“I was thinking about Mum, Beau and Grace,” he told the Guardian. “When I hit the floor I thought, how am I on land right now, is this a dream?”
After reaching land, the exhausted teenager ran about 2km to their accommodation to get his mother’s phone and call emergency services.
