13 year old swims four hours to get help

The Coffee Shop
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In shark infested Australian waters! Have to agree with those that say this 13 year old boy became a man that day.

Mom and three kids get swept miles out to sea and her 13 year old son is their only hope to get to shore while she tries to protect the other two.

Jesus fucking Christ!

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Amazing story, with a surprising happy ending. Great to see a high level of resilience in a 13 year old.

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Been all over the news here & as we’ve had so many shark attacks/sightings lately, the journos have beat it up with ‘shark infested waters’. No more shark infested than all our waters.
They interviewed him with the family and the ‘swam for 4 hours’ seemed more like ‘paddled a leaking plastic kayak’ for 2 hours, then ditched that, started to swim a mixture of breaststroke/backstroke/freestyle in a lifejacket, but then ditched the lifejacket and kept on swimming.
Even so, a very brave kid & incredible effort since his brother said he failed his 350m swim test at something or rather :astonished_face:
Bloody lucky the currents were not against him by the sounds of it.
By the time they found his family they were 14kms out to sea.

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Prominent on the Irish News also. Mother is Irish. Grandmother interviewed on national airwaves and print media.

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4 hours, really a 13 year old? Maybe for a toddler, or if at 13 he swam 8+ hours. Otherwise, ehh.

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That kid showed an unreal mix of fitness and calm under pressure and it’s hard not to feel for everyone involved. I hope the follow up coverage focuses on what went wrong with supervision and safety because this could have ended very differently.

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Sorry, kid didn’t make the 2:20 cutoff. Doesn’t count.

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:joy: savage.

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At least he finally swam far enough away from mom for her to stop nagging about his lifejacket :slight_smile:

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Shouldn’t the kid be in his room playing on his phone and computer?

Kids these days.

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I raced at Busselton awhile ago, back when they allowed the swim to go around the jetty. One of my more memorable swims.

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It is the Busselton jetty swim weekend. Tomorrow a few thousand of us will swim around the jetty.

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Absolutely. And the kid is on loftstrand crutches which are for chronic physical conditions. Not sure if he had them prior but I have to assume based on that fact alone.

I know the initial coverage said the currents shifted on them. But this is some scary shit. He’s the type of person that comes to mind when someone asks me “if you could have lunch with anyone in the world who would it be?”, not Ghandi or a famous footballer. I’d love to meet this kid and buy him lunch.

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