10 year old boy saves his and his father’s life
A story emerged from England that a boy of 10 years old managed to save his and his fathers life when they got caught in bad currents whilst swimming in the sea on holiday.
The family of 4 were on a relaxing beach holiday, when Andrew and his father went into, what appeared to be, an inviting sea to cool off from the warm sun when the trouble started.
Even though they were fairly close to the shore the pair got caught in a rip tide and were quickly swept out to sea.
Wilson Senior started to panic and tried to swim against the tide, and was beginning to tire and go under the water. Andrew who was very confident in the water knew swimming against the tide would exhaust them and was extremely dangerous, he started talking to his father saying dad stop swimming against the tide try to relax, keep your head above the water and swim with the tide, we will get out it won’t last forever. It will be okay! Keep going! Andrew kept talking to his father who was in serious panic mode and managed to keep him calm and reassure him they would get, thankfully the rip wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Rip tides can be extremely dangerous and carry you out to sea for miles. They are not always visible, the sea may look calm and inviting but underneath there is a strong undercurrent that can just carry you off. Thankfully this time the rip tide didn’t carry them out to sea but along the coast line. It finally spat them out and they were able to swim into shore.
Exhausted on the beach Wilson Senior in a state of shock at first, was so thankful to his son for keeping him alive. ‘If it wasn’t for Andrew I would have gone under and not survived, he kept talking to me all the time and telling me it was going to be ok, I was struggling out there and he knew exactly what to do, if it wasn’t for him I’d be dead!”. He told his wife who had been unaware of the difficulty the two had been in.
Back in the UK, Mrs Wilson was keen to pay homage to Andrew’s Swimming School; she said to Caroline Swatton, Swalings UK Director, ‘If it wasn’t for Swalings School of Swimming I would have lost half my family last week. “I’m so glad we persevered with the swimming lessons. Do you remember how Andrew used to say he didn’t want to swim anymore when he was about 7 and you told him he should carry on it could save his life — well it did! I’m so thankful for all these years he’s been with you.” Andrew had a huge grin on his face!
Caroline says – “Andrew is fantastic and what he has done makes us all so proud of him. This is the reason we teach swimming — to save lives. It upsets me to see so many parents think their children can swim once they can swim 20 metres and take them out of swimming lessons or they do not even enrol them at all. ‘If your child can only swim 20 metres what would happen if there boat capsized 100m from shore or in Andrews case they had to keep themselves afloat for 500m down shore and then swim in? The unfortunate but truthful answer is they probably wouldn’t survive!”
We teach children from as young as 2 months old. Andrew started with Swalings when he was 3, by the time he was 10 he had learnt how to swim with his clothes on and swim 3000m and more importantly he had learnt the personal survival skills that saved his and his fathers life. Our hour class teaches children how to survive in open water and the techniques to keep others alive and Andrew is living proof that this really does work. Whatever your age it is so important to be able to swim. It could save your’s or your family’s life. Don’t let it be too late before you start.
If you want to learn to swim, call Swalings now – 561 0707 / 725 2545.
