Posted on 02/13/2026 3:37:57 PM PST by Twotone
Authorities have released the audio of an emergency call made by a 13-year-old boy who swam for hours to save his family after they were swept out to sea.
Austin Appelbee, his mother, brother and sister, from Perth, were on an inflatable kayak and paddleboards when they got into difficulty off the west coast of Western Australia.
Mum Joanne Appelbee, 47, asked her son to swim around 4km (2.5miles) to shore - where he then ran 2km to find a phone he could use to call the emergency services.
With Ms Appelbee's permission, the Western Australia Police Force has released the audio of Austin's call, on which he can be heard calmly explaining the life-threatening situation.
"Hello, my name is Austin and I'm outside [the] beach," he says, before explaining that he has two siblings, brother Beau, aged 12, and sister Grace, eight.
"We went out on a kayak trip and a paddleboard trip, and we got took out to sea and we got lost out there," he continues.
"We got lost around about, I don't know what time it was, but it was a very long time ago. You know, we couldn't get back to shore and mum told me to go back and get help, and then I haven't seen them since."
Austin then suggests: "I think we need a helicopter to go find them."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.sky.com ...
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1. He didn’t swim 4 miles. He might have paddled in with a paddleboard or kayak.
2. It says they couldn’t swim back to shore. He did. Why couldn’t they ?
I hope you’re wearing asbestos draws... You fixin’ to get flamed.
Boy, are you a tough nut!
1) It said he swam 4 km, not 4 miles.
2) If the family (described in the excerpt) tried, they’d all be dead.
I say - feel-good story of the day! It’s amazing what 13 year old boys can do!
I read a more detailed story about this a few days ago. He started heading for shore with an inflatable…. either a kayak or a paddle board, but it started losing air and taking on more water than he could bail so he left it. Later he took off his lifejacket because he was swimming too slow with it on and did not think he could make it to shore with it on. He was a very resourceful young man as well as a hero. Very few people can swim even 1 mile in the ocean.
4 kicks
2 miles
Now that Austin is a certified hero, he should train to be a triathlete! He has a super start!
I’d like to see him in an Iron Man when he turns 18. He’s got the stuff to build up to it from here.
A 13-year-old Australian boy is speaking out after swimming alone for four hours without a life jacket in order to get help for his mom and siblings, who were stranded at sea.
“I just said, ‘Not today, not today, not today. I have to keep on going,’” Austin Appelbee told Australia’s ABC News.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4365581/posts
He looks to be using a crutch on his left side. There's no mention of an orthopedic injury in the story, although he was suffering from hypothermia and another story mentioned heatstroke. Maybe the picture was taken earlier, after a sports accident. Brave and resourceful lad!
Photo was after this event. IIRC he needed a wheelchair for awhile and had improved to the crutch by this time. I’ve not heard it mentioned but my medical guess is he develeped rhabdomyolysis by exerting so far beyond his trained capacity. Once the adrenaline was no longer needed he crashed and would need time to recover. Younger sibs weren’t up to doing the whole swim. Had all tried it they’d have tried to stay together and died well short together. Mum might have been up to it, but I suspect her presence kept the younger sibs from giving up and going under, probably better than Austin could have. She’d identified the only chance they had to save all.
Oh, thank you for the insightful explanation, JohnBovenmyer. I agree with you about the mother’s strategy. Many women would have wanted all her children to stay together with her, and they all most likely would have “gone down with the ship”, so to speak.
God bless that boy and aid his recovery, and give him wisdom for the publicity intrusion sure to trail him for the rest of his life.
“ God bless that boy and aid his recovery, and give him wisdom…”
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Indeed… the kid has heart. He’ll do well in life.
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