Quick-thinking from a local teenager has saved the lives of a mother and child stuck in a rip at a Dalyellup Beach on Wednesday morning.
Sam Russell, 15, sprung in to action when she heard the woman and her 10-year-old son panicking and calling for help after becoming caught in a rip 15 metres offshore.
Sam, who is a student at Newton Moore Senior High School, was at the beach collecting sand samples for a school project when the call for help came and ran into the water fully clothed to assist.
Instinct kicked in as she swam out to the pair to rescue them.
“I pulled the woman to the side of the rip, before swimming back in to get the boy,” she said.
“I then put him on my shoulders and she held onto my arm and we all swam in together to the shore.
“They weren’t confident swimmers and she was panicking and didn’t know what to do in a rip.”
Sam said she was thankful to have completed her bronze medallion, which she got for no other reason than she thought it was a good thing to have.
“If I didn’t have it, I wouldn’t have been able to identify the rip or be able to help get them out of it,” she said.
She stayed with the pair for about 20 minutes while they dried off and calmed down.
The rescued woman then shouted Sam lunch as a thank you.
Sam said the magnitude of what she had done didn’t kick in until she got home.
“You do all this training and never think anything like this would ever happen,” she said.
Sam’s mum Sue Veitch said she was incredibly proud of her daughter who showed extraordinary initiative in risking her own life to save others.
