Amazing young man saves the lives of his mum & siblings

[CactusSwoonedEnding]

Just wanted to share this incredible good news story https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly3ezj3rg3o as a brave and determined 13 year old australian swam for 4km to fetch help for his mum and siblings who had been swept out to sea. Everyone survived thanks to him. There's so much negativity and bleakness in the news that it's really worth sharing when things AREN'T a horrible tragedy!

We sometimes watch Saving Lives at Sea. It seems to be possible to keep a mobile dry in a waterproof case so you have it to call for help, which can be done quite a long way from shore if necessary. I was surprised there was no mention of trying to phone for help, so assume all their phones were left on the shore.

They should have had a mobile phone on them and you generally shouldn’t leave your flotation device.

Well yes, but they didn’t have a phone. There were a number of things they should have done but didn’t. So when faced with being stranded out to see what should he have done other than swim for it?

The mum put them all in that situation. That was a stupid decision.

I agree with PPs that there is something very off about all this. I saw a brief interview with the mum, and imo she did not seem capable.

I agree with those saying it was odd. The Mum seemed to lack any emotion and the younger child looked traumatised.

@DancingNotDrowningadvice is usually to stay with your flotation device as it’s bigger and can be more easily seen. I’m not clear on all the details though.. weird how they lost an oar. Was it just one kayak? Why couldn’t he kayak back to shore if more than one? Or tie them together? Whole story is fishy!

The link says he tried to kayak back to shore with a different kayak but it was damaged and started flipping which is why he ended up swimming.

In the circumstances, it's hard to see what else they could have tried, but the point is that the child's incredible swim should never have been necessary because some basic safety precautions had not been taken. I wonder if anyone else knew where they were and when they should have been back. This is always advised when people go off to climb mountains or do arduous hikes. No lifeguards on the beach to notice them drifting off to sea? That makes me wonder if they should have been in the water at all.

Glad some others have shared my reaction, which is less wow how heroic (though god bless him he is) and more wtf was that mum thinking taking 3 young kids out on the sea with no one around, no phone, no safety plan at all beyond sending her only-just-a-teen son back in a damaged kayak in the waves that had already screwed them all during their 'fun' by taking them out too far. I wouldn't feel comfortable supervising 3 kids in a public pool let alone on the sea, and she's clearly no more competent. Agree it seems off in several ways and that boy will be haunted by it no matter how many people tell him he's a hero.

Something very off about this.

I read a report from an Irish news site. The boy’s grandmother is Irish. She states the mum didn’t send him swimming back for help and the lad decided to go anyway. I’ll try post the link.

Irish grandmother of boy (13) who saved his mother and siblings' lives in Australia 'very proud'

Sorry I don’t think I’ve successfully supplied that link. If anyone wants to see the article is in TheJournal.ie

The children are the victims in this. What a brave boy to swim back to the isolated beach they set off from. Such trauma for them all. Because of their mother.

I don't see how a gran on the other side of the world has better intel, but even if that is what happened, it doesn't reflect any better on the mum for not having any control over her 3 young DC when she takes them into patently dangerous situations.

In the Irish Times it states the mother said she asked him to swim back to shore

I agree. Some of the phrasing in that news report was very very odd.

Yes, I thought that, too. She seemed very cold and emotionless in the face of her eldest son’s bravery which saved their lives and could have lost him his own life. She had her arms around the younger two, but he seemed a bit…distanced, somehow, and sad. I’m probably adding two and two and getting 5 - they’d all been through an ordeal. But something was off.

Just to put the distance into perspective

I am a slow swimmer, 4km in a pool takes me around 2 hours, longer in open water unless it is tide assisted, I have no doubt the young lad was a stronger swimmer than me, he took 4 hours. That sea must have been bloody awful, so so rough.

and whilst I agree you should never ditch your buoyancy aid, I full empathise with why he did, it would have taken much longer with it on.

No idea how anyone thought this was a good news story.
My mouth was agape watching this. What kind of utterly incompetent parent goes out to sea without telling anyone where you've gone, and without a phone?
Why the hell wasn't she the one trying to swim back to shore?This seems like such a stupid plan.
Imagine if her son had drowned. In my opinion, those children should be taken into care by social services. It's bloody tragic and I feel so, so sorry for this poor boy.

Just floating off to sea, in inflatable SUPs and a kayak... from an isolated beach... blaming the conditions of the sea for getting into trouble... yes, that's what happens.

This mother is clearly not capable.

I came looking for this thread to see if others felt the same as me. I didn’t understand all the celebration about this incident. Clearly an extremely dangerous and traumatic event, and it’s frankly a miracle that the boy made it. Even considering sending a child on this kind of mission is incomprehensible to me.

Surely, once they were in that situation, she only had 3 choices.

• All stay together - probably die because no help is coming
• Leave all three children together and try to make it to shore - probably children die alone because she was already having to help the younger ones stay afloat
• Send eldest for help in kayak and stay with younger children - best chance of one or both groups surviving (which is what happened).

Looks to me like she made a very difficult decision, but the right one.

I agree that she made big mistakes for them to be in that situation in the first place, but people do make mistakes.

I also agree her reaction seems a bit off, but I imagine she is also feeling quite traumatised after her own experience. Yes, her children had a traumatic time, and of course it’s right that they are the focus, but it wasn’t exactly a walk in the park for her. I expect she is masking and just trying to get through all the attention on them until she can emotionally collapse and start to process it.

I agree.

Especially about the mum's reaction. Everyone likes to think they know how they would react to a traumatic experience but ultimately, no one does unless they've had a similar traumatic experience and thankfully most people don't get to find out how they'd actually react.

She's probably still in shock and hasn't even began to process what happened.

In saying all that, we live by the sea and my DS was an RNLI beach lifeguard. The amount of sheer stupidity you see against all advice is unbelievable. People out on holiday or on day trips with very little understanding about tides, currents, weather conditions etc. going out in groups on SUPs with no life jackets or means of communication.

The comments about 'not stopping swimming lessons at 25M' are a bit misguided. Whether you stop swimming lessons when your kid can swim 25M or 2500M, the fact is that the vast vast majority of children, nay people, would not be able to complete this swim in the sea. It's incredible. Your kid completing his 'black hat' in the local leisure centre isn't going to be a factor in this scenario - maybe if they fall in the canal or a camping lake, but otherwise, no.