Champion ironman reveals heroic act that saved two lives: ‘He was 30 seconds from dying … you could see it in his eyes’

One of Australia’s leading Ironman champions has revealed the terrifying moment he saw a swimmer take his life just before saving him from drowning.

Caine Eckstein is a five-time winner of the Coolangatta Gold Ironman race and has set records for saving surfing lives in Australia.

He competed in Ironman and Surf Life Saving events as an elite endurance athlete, known for his strength in both long-distance and high-intensity races.

Eckstein also broke the world record for most pull-ups in 24 hours in 2014, completing 4,210.

He has also become a hero to a backpacking couple after recently rescuing them from choppy waters at Byron Bay on the NSW north coast.

Caine Eckstein is an Ironman champion and five-time winner of the Coolangatta Gold

Eckstein happened to be holding his first coaching session on Main Beach in Byron Bay when he saw the two backpackers in trouble in the surf.

In a stroke of luck, Eckstein was holding his first longboard surfing skills session on Main Beach at the popular tourist spot when the alarm went off because an English holidaymaker and his girlfriend had gotten into trouble.

“It was 5.30pm NSW time [on Wednesday]. I got there around 5 p.m.…I was standing on the beach and I could just see two,” Eckstein said. News Corp.

“There was a northerly wind, so it was quite rough and muddy.”

Eckstein saw that the couple had become separated after a rip took them both, so he jumped into the surf, followed by one of his teenage students.

He revealed that if they had waited a minute longer, they would have had a tragedy.

“She was fine and said, ‘Go help my friend,'” Eckstein recalled.

‘I think he was dead within thirty seconds. He had no strength and he was just going down… you can see it in their eyes – he was about to give up.”

A tragedy would have occurred if it took Eckstein and his teenage student just one more minute to hit the water

Eckstein praised his student’s actions for helping with the rescue, with the younger surfer ensuring the woman was pulled to safety while Eckstein tied the male swimmer to his board.

“We were kind of crushed because he was holding us to the board that was pulling us into the sea, so I tell him, ‘Let’s try to turn it, try to turn it,'” Eckstein said.

‘I got him on land and then ran back out because the girl had broken away from the child’s plate again and by the time I got back to her she was quite scared.

“I contacted her and told her to just hold on to my sign.”

Once they were all safely back on the beach, Eckstein said the backpacker revealed how close he was to destruction.

“The first thing the boyfriend said to me was, ‘I would have died if you hadn’t gotten out,'” Eckstein said.

‘It was quite full, he was very close to something bad happening.

“He didn’t have long because they were in a rip that took them out and the waves were knocking them back in, so they’re in this vortex… you could tell they weren’t going anywhere.”