🔗 Share this article We Must Have a Chopper to Go Find Them’: 13-Year-Old’s Distress Call to Aid Loved Ones Lost Off Aussie Coast Disclosed “We got lost out there,” a 13-year-old boy tells the 000 call handler, after swimming 2.5 miles in rough, the sea and jogging 1.25 miles to secure help for his family. The call taker asks how much time has gone by since he began. “[It] was quite some time back … I think they’re a long way from land. I think we need a rescue aircraft to search for them,” he says. Police have released the emergency phone call made previously after the boy left his family adrift at sea off the Western Australian coast to seek assistance. His tone remains lucid and collected, even as he voices his concern for his family members. “I don’t know what their status is right now, and I’m extremely frightened,” he confides in the person on the line. “Mum said to find rescue … We were in serious danger.” The Harrowing Ordeal The mother and children had been swept 4km out to sea in treacherous conditions while kayaking and paddleboarding. His parent instructed him to take his kayak and locate rescue, so the boy began, ditching first his waterlogged vessel then his bulky flotation device to cover the remaining stretch. After making it to shore – following a four-hour swim – he sprinted for 2km to retrieve a cell phone. “Hello, my name is Austin … I have younger siblings, Beau and Grace. Beau is 12 and Grace is eight,” he explains the operator. “I’m sitting on the beach right now, and I have to also explain – I think I need an ambulance because I think I have a dangerously low body temperature … I’m really, I’m completely exhausted. I have sunstroke, and I feel like I’m about to faint.” A Getaway in Peril The holidaymakers was on vacation in Quindalup, 125 miles south of Perth. They departed from Geographe Bay around 10am on a Friday in late January. The woman later described that they were playing around when the kids “ventured out too far”. The breeze strengthened, they dropped their paddles, and started being carried out. “It kind of all went wrong very, very quickly,” she said. The parent also referenced having to make “an incredibly tough choice” to send her son to swim ashore. “I knew he was the strongest and he had the ability to succeed,” she commented. The Search Operation The youth explained being “very puffed out”. “I just keep swimming, I do breaststroke, I do front crawl, I do elementary backstroke,” he recalled. The distress call was made at about 6pm. At about 8.30pm, a full ten hours after they first departed, the family were spotted and rescued. They had been carried about 14km out to sea. The audio was released with the family’s permission. A senior officer who managed the rescue mission said the group was in an “desperately dangerous position”. “They were in genuine danger, and time was of the essence given how much time they had been in the water and with daylight fading. “What the boy did was nothing short of extraordinary. His heroic actions in those conditions were astonishing, and his actions were pivotal in bringing about a successful outcome.” The commander also highlighted how the boy clearly relayed key facts. When asked to describe the boards for the rescue team, the teenager responded: “They were a green and white colour.” “And I’m not sure if it’s there, but they had this fishing rod, and there was a catch on the line. As we hooked one.”
“We got lost out there,” a 13-year-old boy tells the 000 call handler, after swimming 2.5 miles in rough, the sea and jogging 1.25 miles to secure help for his family. The call taker asks how much time has gone by since he began. “[It] was quite some time back … I think they’re a long way from land. I think we need a rescue aircraft to search for them,” he says. Police have released the emergency phone call made previously after the boy left his family adrift at sea off the Western Australian coast to seek assistance. His tone remains lucid and collected, even as he voices his concern for his family members. “I don’t know what their status is right now, and I’m extremely frightened,” he confides in the person on the line. “Mum said to find rescue … We were in serious danger.” The Harrowing Ordeal The mother and children had been swept 4km out to sea in treacherous conditions while kayaking and paddleboarding. His parent instructed him to take his kayak and locate rescue, so the boy began, ditching first his waterlogged vessel then his bulky flotation device to cover the remaining stretch. After making it to shore – following a four-hour swim – he sprinted for 2km to retrieve a cell phone. “Hello, my name is Austin … I have younger siblings, Beau and Grace. Beau is 12 and Grace is eight,” he explains the operator. “I’m sitting on the beach right now, and I have to also explain – I think I need an ambulance because I think I have a dangerously low body temperature … I’m really, I’m completely exhausted. I have sunstroke, and I feel like I’m about to faint.” A Getaway in Peril The holidaymakers was on vacation in Quindalup, 125 miles south of Perth. They departed from Geographe Bay around 10am on a Friday in late January. The woman later described that they were playing around when the kids “ventured out too far”. The breeze strengthened, they dropped their paddles, and started being carried out. “It kind of all went wrong very, very quickly,” she said. The parent also referenced having to make “an incredibly tough choice” to send her son to swim ashore. “I knew he was the strongest and he had the ability to succeed,” she commented. The Search Operation The youth explained being “very puffed out”. “I just keep swimming, I do breaststroke, I do front crawl, I do elementary backstroke,” he recalled. The distress call was made at about 6pm. At about 8.30pm, a full ten hours after they first departed, the family were spotted and rescued. They had been carried about 14km out to sea. The audio was released with the family’s permission. A senior officer who managed the rescue mission said the group was in an “desperately dangerous position”. “They were in genuine danger, and time was of the essence given how much time they had been in the water and with daylight fading. “What the boy did was nothing short of extraordinary. His heroic actions in those conditions were astonishing, and his actions were pivotal in bringing about a successful outcome.” The commander also highlighted how the boy clearly relayed key facts. When asked to describe the boards for the rescue team, the teenager responded: “They were a green and white colour.” “And I’m not sure if it’s there, but they had this fishing rod, and there was a catch on the line. As we hooked one.”