'Superhuman': 13-Year-Old Swims for Hours to Save His Family After They are Swept Out to Sea

Austin Applebee is being hailed for his heroic actions after swimming for four hours to reach shore and get help when his family was swept out to sea.

Austin, his mother Joanne, and his 12-year-old brother, and his 8-year-old sister were pulled into the ocean off Quindalup, about 250 kilometres south of Perth. They had been out on a kayak and inflatable paddleboards when the sea appeared calm — at least at first. When Austin’s kayak flipped, Joanne went to help him and bring him back in. Meanwhile, the waves began to grow stronger. When Austin flipped again, his brother’s kayak started taking on water. The situation quickly became dangerous as the family was pulled farther out to sea.

Realizing the risk, Joanne told Austin to swim to shore and get help, knowing he was the strongest swimmer. At first, she wasn’t overly panicked. She believed the hotel would notice the missing kayak and paddleboards, and that Austin would make it back to shore to raise the alarm. But as the hours passed, her worry grew.

Austin faced his own terrifying ordeal in the water. His kayak filled with water and was dragged away, and he knew the swim back would be long — nearly four kilometres. Along the way, he spotted something in the water and struggled to keep going. He focused on thoughts of his friends and family, repeating to himself, “not today, not today,” to push forward. Eventually, he was forced to abandon the kayak and even discard his life jacket in order to keep swimming. After hours in the water, Austin finally reached shore and collapsed.

But the ordeal wasn’t over. Austin then sprinted two kilometres to reach an emergency phone, as the many tourists on the beach were unable to help. He called emergency services and requested boats and helicopters to rescue his family.

in the water, Joanne was doing her best to keep her children from panicking. “We kept positive, we were singing, and we were joking and … we were treating it as a bit of a game until the sun started to go down, and that’s when it was getting very choppy [with] very big waves,” she told ABC News. “As the sun went down, I thought something’s gone terribly wrong here and my fear was that [Austin] didn’t make it. Then, as it got darker, yeah, I thought there was no one coming to save us.”

Joanne began mentally preparing for all of them to die, but she continued to comfort her two children. Eight hours later, just five minutes before a rescue boat appeared, they were separated by a large wave. They had been tethered to the paddleboards with leg braces but now were drifting apart. The boat first spotted Joanne and picked her up but she screamed that her children were still in the water. Thankfully, both children were quickly located and pulled out of the water. In total, the trio had spent about 10 hours in the water.

Authorities are calling Austin’s swim to shore “superhuman.” He swam two hours with a lifejacket and two without and given the conditions they said he endured the physical equivalent of running two marathons. He’s currently on crutches to help him walk while his leg muscles recover. His family have swollen legs, blisters and bruises but will recover.

Joanne said, “I just hope that [the experience] doesn’t come back later on to hit them harder than it should. Because as I said to everybody, we made it, we’re alive, and that’s the most important thing.”

The family recounts the entire ordeal in the longer video below.