A pair of British vacationers were saved from drowning by two Canadian teens who happened to be on the same beach at the same time, and excellent swimmers to boot.
Emma Bassermann, 14, and Zoe Meklensek-Ireland, 13, have both trained competitively for years. Zoe has a dream of making the Olympic trials with her father as her coach, and trains at the Dorval Swim Club in Quebec with the hopes of making that happen.
It was 3 p.m. on the south shore of Barbados when Emma and Zoe finished boogie boarding. They were on the island as part of a training camp, but wouldn’t go in for practice until sometime later.
Suddenly, they heard a shout.
“I heard someone yelling for help in the distance. I was looking around for her and I spotted her and she was about 50 feet out from where I was,” Zoe told Global News. “So I went out to her and she told me that her husband was further out and he was struggling to swim and he needed assistance.”
Belinda Stone, from England, had been caught in a riptide with her husband Robert. With Emma’s help, Zoe quickly got Belinda to shore, but Robert was way further out.
Belinda urged them not to risk their young lives to save her 60-year-old husband, but without lifeguards on the beach that morning, fate had them as the two most experienced swimmers anywhere nearby.
Fortunately they had their boogie boards, and could save their energy as they went out for a 6-minute swim to reach Robert, who was trying to swim against the current.
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Many people may vacation on beaches their whole lives and never be taught what to do if caught in a riptide. Zoe and Emma, however, understood the situation well, and after loading the exhausted Robert Stone onto the board, Zoe strapped it to her ankle and the three started to swim—parallel to the shore—until they got out of the both the current and the diagonal wave pattern.
It was a long, long swim, but the girls were strong. Together they made it back to the beach.
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It was more than just the visiting Brits who celebrated the two teens’ spectacular swimming skills, but the president of the local youth democratic party, who presented the girls with an award for their bravery.
Zoe’s father, Chuck Meklensek, was so proud and partly astonished at what his daughter accomplished, and said it’s a good example of why he thinks every child should take swimming lessons for at least a few years.
“My feeling is every child should be doing swimming until at least age 10 or even 12. If the boat tips over, you want to swim to shore, these girls know how to swim to shore and pull someone in,” he told Global News. “It’s the only sport that is a life-or-death sport and they learned it really well.”
WATCH the story below from Global News…
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