What started as a normal afternoon by the sea turned into a battle for survival within minutes. The Appelbee family was on holiday in Quindalup, about 200 kilometres south of Perth, Western Australia, when strong winds changed everything.
The mother, Joanne Appelbee, was in the water with her three children: Austin (age 13), Beau (age 12) and Grace (age 8). They were playing with two surfboards and a kayak (a watercraft similar to a canoe) in shallow water, without any worries. But suddenly a strong wind started. The boards began to move further and further from the shore. The paddles were lost.
“Everything went wrong very quickly,” Joanne told ABC. “It was like a chain of events that just wouldn’t stop.”
As the family drifted further and further from shore, a decision had to be made. A decision no parent would ever want to make. Joanne decided to ask her oldest son, Austin, to swim to shore for help.
“I knew he was the strongest,” she said later. “I couldn’t just walk away and leave the little children at sea. I had to send someone.”
Austin headed for shore, while the mother and two other children were pushed further and further away from the shore by the wind. After a while, Austin was no longer visible. The sun set. The waves increased. The family, wearing life jackets, tried to hold on to the boards, but every minute it became more difficult.
“I thought Austin would have arrived much sooner,” Joanne recalls. “Then I started asking myself, ‘What if he didn’t arrive? What have I done?’”
Meanwhile, Austin was swimming. Four kilometers out to sea, in difficult conditions, his body getting more and more tired, but with only one thought in his head: his mother, sister, and brother.
“I was just thinking about Mom, Beau, and Grace,” he said. “When I felt the sand under my feet, I thought I was dreaming.”
But there was no time to rest. Once he reached the ground, Austin ran another 2 kilometers to find his mother's bag, where the phone was. At around 6:00 p.m., he called emergency services.
“I told them: 'I need helicopters, I need ships, I need everything. My family is at sea.'”
After the call, exhausted from exhaustion, Austin passed out and was taken to the hospital. He didn't know if his family was still alive.
At sea, the situation was dramatic. It was dark and cold. The waves were constantly plunging them under the water. At one point, the children were thrown off the board by a strong wave.
“I could hear Grace screaming,” Joanne said. “But I couldn’t hear Beau. I thought the worst.”
Search and rescue teams, after hours of searching, managed to find the family about 14 kilometers from the coast, struggling to hold on. All three were saved in the last moments. It was only after an ambulance worker confirmed that Austin was also alive and in the hospital that Joanne was finally able to breathe peacefully.
“It was a happy ending to a terrible situation,” she said.
All four family members received treatment at the hospital for minor injuries. Austin, whose legs were sore from extreme fatigue, has now returned to school on crutches.
The police and emergency services publicly praised his courage and determination.
"The actions of this 13-year-old cannot be appreciated enough. His courage saved lives," said a police official.
Austin himself, however, is modest:
“I didn’t think I was a hero,” he said. “I just did what had to be done.”
