<\/p>\n
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) – A 13-year-old boy swam for four hours in cold and choppy waters to save his mother and two younger siblings who had been swept out to sea off the coast of Western Australia.<\/p>\n
The family, from the state capital Perth, were using kayaks and paddleboards on Friday morning when rough ocean and wind conditions started dragging them out. Teenager Austin Appelbee swam about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) to shore to raise the alarm, police said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe waves are massive and I have no life jacket on. \u2026 I just kept thinking \u2018just keep swimming, just keep swimming,\u2019\u201d Austin said Tuesday. \u201cAnd then I finally I made it to shore and I hit the bottom of the beach and I just collapsed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Austin said he initially set off in an inflatable kayak and wearing a life jacket, but the ocean was rough and the vessel was taking in too much water so he abandoned it. He then discarded the life jacket because it impeded his swimming. He said he tried to focus on positive thoughts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The family had set off on their seaside adventure before noon, Austin raised the alarm at 6 p.m. and a helicopter spotted his mother Joanne Appelbee, 47, his 12-year-old brother Beau and his 8-year-old sister Grace around 8:30 p.m.<\/p>\n
The family had drifted about 14 kilometers (9 miles) from Quindalup in Western Australia state and spent about 10 hours in the water.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 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,\u201d Police Inspector James Bradley said.<\/p>\n
Joanne Appelbee told reporters that she sent her oldest child for help because she could not leave all her children stranded in the ocean.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the hardest decisions I ever had to make was to say to Austin: \u2018Try and get to shore and get some help. This could get really serious really quickly,\u2018\u201d she told Australian Broadcasting Corp.<\/p>\n
She said she started out feeling confident he would reach the shore but was filled with doubt when the sun started to set and help had still not arrived.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe kept positive, we were singing and we were joking and \u2026 we were treating it as a bit of a game until the sun started to go down and that\u2019s when it was getting very choppy. Very big waves,\u201d Joanne Appelbee said.<\/p>\n
By the time they were rescued, all three of them were shivering and Beau had lost sensation in his legs because of the cold, the mom said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have three babies. All three made it. That was all that mattered,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. \u00a0
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MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) – A 13-year-old boy swam for four hours in cold and choppy waters to save his mother and two younger siblings who had been swept out to sea off the coast of Western Australia. The family, from the state capital Perth, were using kayaks and paddleboards on Friday morning when rough ocean<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17965,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[5773,4356,2890,858,2277,5622,5775,5776,5774],"class_list":["post-17964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jesus","tag-13yearold","tag-boy","tag-hours","tag-mom","tag-save","tag-sea","tag-siblings","tag-swept","tag-swims"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}