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A 13-year-old boy who swam for hours to get help after his family was swept out to sea said he feared the worst while recovering in hospital, saying: “I thought they were dead.”
Austin Appelbee’s marathon swim began when a kayaking and paddleboarding outing in Geographe Bay near Quindalup in southwestern Australia turned dangerous as the winds strengthened and the waves surged.
The family from Perth – Austin, his mother Joanne, 47, and siblings Beau, 12, and Grace, 8 – were pushed further from shore and eventually drifted about 14km out.
The extraordinary tale of how the family survived thanks to Austin’s four-hour swim to shore has received huge media attention in a whirlwind few days since the incident on Friday, with local leaders
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