‘We Need a Helicopter to Go Find Them’: 13-Year-Old’s Distress Call to Save Family Stranded Off Down Under Coast Unveiled

“We became disoriented out there,” young Austin Appelbee tells the 000 call handler, having swum 4km in rough, the sea and sprinting 2km to summon rescue for his family.

The call taker asks how long has passed since he started out.

“[It] was ages past … I think they’re kilometres out to sea. I think we must get a helicopter to search for them,” he states.

Emergency services have made public the distress call made previously after the teen left his relatives drifting at sea off the West Australian coast to fetch help.

His voice remains clear and calm, even as he details his fear for his kin.

“I don’t know what their condition is right now, and I’m extremely frightened,” he confides in the dispatcher.

“Mum said go get help … We were in serious danger.”

The Harrowing Ordeal

The mother and children had been pulled four kilometres out to sea in treacherous conditions while kayaking and paddleboarding.

His mum urged him to use his craft and locate rescue, so the teenager set off, ditching first his waterlogged vessel then his unwieldy PFD to swim the distance.

After reaching land – following a four-hour swim – he sprinted for 2km to get to a mobile phone.

“Hello, my name is Austin … I have a brother and sister, Beau and Grace. Beau is 12 and Grace is eight,” he explains the operator.

“I’m positioned on the beach right now, and I have to also mention – I think I need an medical help because I think I have hypothermia … I’m really, I’m extremely tired. I have heatstroke, and I feel like I’m about to pass out.”

A Holiday Turned Crisis

The group was on a break in Quindalup, 200km south of Perth. They departed from Geographe Bay following 10am on a Friday in late January.

The woman later recalled that they were playing around when the kids “ventured out too far”. The wind picked up, they dropped their paddles, and started being carried out.

“It kind of all went wrong very, very quickly,” she remarked.

The parent also described having to make “one of the hardest decisions” to ask her son to make the swim for help.

“I knew he was the most capable and he could do it,” she stated.

The Successful Mission

The teenager described being “extremely winded”.

“I just keep swimming, I do breaststroke, I do freestyle, I do elementary backstroke,” he recalled.

The distress call was made at about 6pm.

At about 8.30pm, ten hours after they first began, the stranded individuals were spotted and rescued. They had drifted about fourteen kilometres out to sea.

The emergency call was made public with the parents' permission.

A police sergeant who coordinated the search and rescue effort said the group was in an “extremely dire situation”.

“They were in serious jeopardy, and time was of the essence given how long they had been in the water and with night approaching.

“What the boy did was incredibly brave. His heroic actions in those conditions were astonishing, and his actions were instrumental in bringing about a positive result.”

The commander also highlighted how the boy calmly conveyed vital details.

When asked to describe the equipment for the rescue team, the boy responded: “They were green and white.”

“And I’m not sure if it’s there, but they had this fishing rod, and there was a fish on there. Because we hooked one.”