We Must Have a Chopper to Go Find Them’: Adolescent’s Emergency Call to Aid Loved Ones Lost Off Australian Coast Revealed

“We ended up adrift out there,” a 13-year-old boy explains to the emergency operator, following a swim four kilometres in choppy, the sea and running 2km to secure help for his household.

The dispatcher inquires how much time has elapsed since he began.

“[It] was ages past … I think they’re far offshore. I think we require a chopper to go find them,” he reports.

Police have made public the recorded plea made last month after the youth left his relatives drifting at sea off the West Australian coast to fetch help.

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

“I don’t know what their state is right now, and I’m terrified,” he confides in the person on the line.

“Mum said to find rescue … We were in grave peril.”

The Dangerous Incident

The family group had been carried 2.5 miles out to sea in rough conditions while using kayaks and paddleboards.

His mum instructed him to take his kayak and locate rescue, so the teenager commenced, discarding first his sinking craft then his cumbersome lifejacket to make the journey by swimming.

After getting to the beach – following a four-hour swim – he raced for two kilometres to access a phone.

“Hello, my name is Austin … I have two siblings, Beau and Grace. Beau is 12 and Grace is eight,” he tells the call handler.

“I’m sitting on the beach right now, and I have to also add – I think I need an paramedic because I think I have hypothermia … I’m really, I’m utterly fatigued. I have heatstroke, and I feel like I’m about to collapse.”

A Holiday Turned Crisis

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

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

“It sort of all went wrong very, very quickly,” she noted.

The mother also referenced having to make “an incredibly tough choice” to ask her son to make the swim for help.

“I knew he was the best swimmer and he had the ability to succeed,” she stated.

The Search Operation

The boy described being “completely out of breath”.

“I just pressed on, I do the breaststroke, I do front crawl, I do a floating stroke,” he explained.

The emergency call was made at about 6pm.

At about 8.30pm, many hours after they first set out, the family were spotted and rescued. They had been carried about fourteen kilometres out to sea.

The recording was released with the parents' permission.

A police sergeant who managed the rescue mission said the group was in an “incredibly perilous state”.

“They were in genuine danger, and time was of the essence given how much time they had been in the water and with light running out.

“What the boy did was nothing short of extraordinary. His heroic actions in those conditions were exceptional, and his actions were instrumental in bringing about a successful outcome.”

The officer also commended how the teenager clearly relayed vital details.

When asked to describe the equipment for the authorities, the youth responded: “They were green and white.”

“And I’m not sure if it’s there, but they had this rod, and there was a catch on the line. Since we caught one.”