Austin Appleby’s 4km swim sparks dramatic sea rescue (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: I just said, all right, not today, not today, not today. I have to keep on going. This is Austin Appleby. He swam four kilometres or two and a half miles to shore to get help for his mother and two younger siblings after his family was swept out to sea. The family were kayaking and paddleboarding off the coast of Quindaloop in Western Australia on Friday afternoon when they were carried out to sea as conditions deteriorated. In an interview, the family explained how their kayaks filled with water, leaving Austin's mother with a difficult choice.

[00:00:31] Speaker 2: One of the hardest decisions I ever had to make was to say to Austin, try and get to shore and get some help. Everything goes through your head as a mum.

[00:00:40] Speaker 1: Did I make the wrong decision by sending them? Austin then set out to try and get help, but after paddling a short distance, his kayak took in too much water and he had to abandon it, as well as his life jacket, so that he could swim the gruelling four kilometres back to shore.

[00:00:53] Speaker 3: Not today, not today, not today. I have to keep on going. I just keep swimming. I do breaststroke, I do freestyle, I do survival backstroke. I think at one point I was thinking of Thomas the Tank Engine, you know, trying to get the happiest things in my head, trying to make it through.

[00:01:13] Speaker 1: Hours after first leaving his family, Austin arrived back at shore, but his work was not yet done, as he had to run a farther two kilometres back to the hotel to get his mother's phone.

[00:01:23] Speaker 3: I said, I need helicopters, I need planes. I need boats. My family's out at sea. I was very calm about it.

[00:01:33] Speaker 1: I think it was just a lot of shock. Thanks to his efforts, Austin's family were rescued after more than eight hours of clinging to paddle boards.

[00:01:41] Speaker 3: So what was that moment like when you found out that they were alive? I thought it was fake. I didn't believe it. I wasn't jumping up and down, because I actually had fluids in me.

[00:01:54] Speaker 1: Austin's mother, who endured an agonising weight of not knowing what happened to her son, says she knows just how amazing Austin's actions were.

[00:02:01] Speaker 2: There's no bigger word to describe him other than cried like I can. I'm speechless at his efforts, but at the same time, I knew he could do it.