A teenage girl and her friend have been rescued by a 13-year-old boy after they were caught in a dangerous rip at Venus Bay in Victoria.
Charlotte Baker, 15, says she’s thankful to be alive after being rescued from rough water on the South Gippsland coast.
“I just didn’t think I was going to make it really,” Charlotte told 9News.
“That was as scared as I’ve ever been in my whole life.”
The teenager was swimming with her best friend when things took a dangerous turn.
Caught in unrelenting waves at Venus Bay, they struggled to swim back.
“I just gave up and I was just floating, just screaming, like me and my friend were screaming for our life.”
Luckily, 13-year-old Tom Walsh was also in the water and spotted the pair in trouble.
The young volunteer lifesaver raced back to shore to get to a new public rescue equipment station, allowing him to alert triple zero and grab a floatable tube to help the girls.
“They looked like they’ve swallowed a lot of water, so I swam over to them, gave them the tube, and we kind of just made the wave push us in,” Tom told 9News.
Charlotte labelled him a hero for his efforts.
“That was so brave of him,” she said.
“Putting himself in harm’s way to save me and my friends, that is so incredible, and I thank him for it so much.”
Five public rescue equipment stations were installed along Venus Bay beach just two weeks ago, aimed at improving safety on Victoria’s volatile coastline.
Designed for bystanders in an emergency, the station is fitted with a button to call triple zero, a flotation tube and language support.
“Keeping someone afloat is, you know, saving minutes – and that could be the difference between life and death,” Life Saving Victoria’s Danny Busija told 9News.
Seven people have drowned across the state this summer, and there could have been six more if not for the rescue stations. While it’s only a trial, Life Saving Victoria is hoping more can be rolled out at the most dangerous beaches.
“Well, it’s a three-year trial [but] I’m hoping we don’t have to wait three years to see them being rolled out elsewhere,” Paul Hoffman from Life Saving Victoria told 9News.
“I think we’ve seen in a week what can happen. There are plenty of places that they should be.”
