Irish family rescued after son’s four-hour swim for help in Australian waters

Louise Walsh

The Irish mother of an Australian boy who swam for four hours in a desperate bid to get help for his family said she can no longer view sunsets, as it reminds her of how she began losing all hope of survival as she watched the sun go down on them in the ocean.

Joanne Appelbee, whose miraculous rescue received global headlines, has urged parents to always have a mobile phone with them while on the water - ahead of Water Safety Week from Monday.

Joanne (nee Cunningham) is currently home with her children, Austin (14), Beau (12) and Grace (8), visiting her family in Magheracloone, Co Monaghan, where they received a civic reception from the Co Council on Monday.

Despite the smiles, the mother-of-three said her children were receiving counselling support in the aftermath of the traumatic incident, which left her and her two youngest hanging on to kayaks which were tied together, while Austin bravely swam through ten-foot-high waves in shark-infested waters to get help.

Joanne had just received a new secondment at work, and the family decided to spend the last weekend before school reopened on a breakaway, in Quindalup, about two and a half hours away from where they lived in Perth.

They decided to return home a day early on February 2nd, to get ready for school, but the children wanted to spend half an hour paddleboarding and kayaking before leaving.

However, Joanne had to venture out to warn Austin that he had drifted too far into the water.

"I wouldn't get into a pool if it was over 1.5m, so I had no intention of going anywhere deep," she said.

"It was a nice, beautiful, sunny day, and as I was talking to him, he fell over and lost the paddle.  So I tried to tie him to my paddleboard, which had Grace on the back of it.  Beau was still in his kayak, closer to the shore.

"We had gone out further in the water than I had expected in a very, very short space of time, and the wind picked up and started pushing us back."

Beau paddled his kayak out to see if his family were ok, and Joanne tried to tie the paddle boards to his boat in an effort to get back to shore.

"We just kept going out further, and the kayak was filling with water.  I thought this was not a good position to be in, we're not getting back in, and the wind is picking up."

Choppy waters

Austin bravely said he would swim to get help, unknown to everyone that it would take four hours to get to shore and another two to run and get help as he battled to swim in choppy waters.

"At that stage, I could see the shore, and it didn't look far away for him to get to. But again, while all this is happening, you're still getting pushed out because just then, a north shore breeze came in, and it started to push us out unbelievably quickly.

"And as this is happening, the waves are getting higher. Later in the night, the waves were up to ten feet high.

"It was the perfect storm.  It was shocking. Oh my God, not something I would like anybody else to ever go through. And how we've made it through is a complete miracle.  So it is fantastic that we are here and we are back at home now."

However, as the time ticked by, Joanne admitted that, despite keeping her children positive by playing games and singing songs, she was losing hope.

"I never said it to the children, but when the sun went down, I thought that was it for us because I knew the hotel locked the boats up at 5 o'clock and the sun didn't go down until after 7, so I thought, that's it. No one is coming to save us.

"We wouldn't have survived the night.  I didn't even know how we survived as long as we did.

"And at that stage. I thought Austin hadn't made it."

When Joanne and her children were picked up by the rescue boats and helicopters, they had drifted 40 minutes out from shore.

"It wasn't until the paramedic came down the boat ramp and told me he had Austin, that I knew he was OK and when I heard that, I passed out and threw up all over myself. "

Joanne agreed to their story being aired to the main Australian broadcasters to highlight the work of the First Responder volunteers who had saved them, but never imagined it would have a global response.

She admitted that the children needed support to cope in the aftermath of what had happened.

"It took me a long time to try and get them into specialist care because the system, like everywhere, is overloaded.  But we did get support.  Grace reverted back to a few years before her age and Beau didn't sleep for a long time.

"Austin is doing well.  He's kind of riding the wave of being a hero.

"Once I get them sorted, then I will get myself sorted.  But the one thing that does affect me, and will, I think for a long time, is sunsets.  I don't watch them because that was when I thought we weren't going to be saved."

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