Boy Swims Miles Through Shark-Infested Waters To Save His Family. His Secret Is Easy
This is unbelievable
Welcome back to Mr. Right, a newsletter about navigating modern manhood for normal guys in a not-normal world.
This week, I discuss the power of prayer and happy thoughts, and how a young boy swam 2.5 miles through shark-infested waters to rescue his family.
And Happy Super Bowl weekend. Will you be watching Bad Bunny’s halftime show? I’d hope not. Feel free to shoot me an email and let me know your thoughts mrright@dailycaller.com. My ideal halftime show? Guns N’ Roses.
Boy Swims Miles Through Shark-Infested Waters To Save His Family. His Secret Is Easy
For a couple of years as a kid, I swam on a winter YMCA swim team. I hated the practices so much that I often begged my mom to let me skip. Sometimes, I’d purposefully leave my Speedo jammer at home in hopes I wouldn’t have to practice once I got to the pool. If my memory serves me well, this gimmick backfired spectacularly one time, and I was forced to swim in my boxers.
Whenever the practice was hard and dragged on endlessly, and I was beginning to tire, I would imagine that a shark had swum into the pool’s drain system and was chasing me down from the deep end. This delusion pushed me to swim faster and harder, even if my arms felt like overcooked strings of pasta. The swimmer behind me, whose hand just clipped my foot, was, in my mind, a Great White shark, about to saw off my body, waist-down.
Thirteen-year-old Aussie Austin Appelbee found a very different motivation as he swam through the choppy, shark-infested waters of Western Australia to rescue his family.
Austin, his mom Joanne, his brother Beau, and his sister Grace were enjoying the ocean on a kayak and two paddleboards. However, as is the case with so many tragic drownings, the family didn’t realize how far they were from shore and were soon swept away into the sea.
They knew they needed help, so the mom stayed with the two younger siblings, and Austin tried to take the kayak back to the shore. But it was too damaged, taking on water due to the rough waves, and capsized.
At this point, Austin had lost sight of his family, as they drifted further and further out. They all had life jackets, but no food or water.
He clung to the kayak, and later, swore he saw something in the water (probably a shark). He had no choice, though. He had to swim for it.
And swim he did. Through choppy waves that were getting bigger and bigger, and strong currents, Austin swam 4 km, roughly 2.5 miles.
For the next two hours, Austin kept swimming and swimming, like Dory from Finding Nemo. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming. He was thinking “happy thoughts,” praying, and singing Christian songs in his head. He couldn’t see his family, but he knew they could still be alive, and that he had to make the heroic journey to save them.
“I was thinking about mum, Beau, and Grace. I was also thinking about my friends and my girlfriend — I have a really good bunch of friends,” he said.
In a somewhat dark twist to the tale, when Austin made it to shore, he couldn’t get help from any beachgoers. They were all foreigners, and, presumably, couldn’t speak English. He had to book it by himself to the nearest telephone to call emergency services.
Immediately after calling in the rescue crews, he passed out. But his family would be saved.
Austin’s heroic story reminds me of those mind-boggling feats of strength humans are capable of when they’re stuck in life-or-death situations, such as the moms who obtain Superman levels of strength to lift a car off their infant child. When under such pressure and distress, physical and mental, the human body can do incredible things.
His story is also a testament to the power of prayer and optimism. He didn’t panic. He drowned out the fear with “happy thoughts.” Thoughts about his family, friends, and girlfriend. He probably recited a dozen prayers, at least, as he was battered by wave after wave. If he was thinking about the sharks beneath him, the overpowering ocean currents, the improbable odds, maybe he wouldn’t have made it.
Heaven forbid, dear reader, that we end up in as daunting a crucible as Austin’s. But no matter what life throws at us, we can try to be like this Aussie teen. Even if we aren’t saving anyone, even if we aren’t embarking on a heroic quest, we can just keep swimming. Sometimes, that’s all you have to do in life. Just keep swimming.
As Samuel Beckett writes, “I follow with my eyes the proud and futile wake. Which, as it bears me from no fatherland away, bears me onward to no shipwreck.”
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