- Charlie Haggett thought he was going to drown after saving the teen
- Ex-footy star was eventually rescued with a boogie board
- Haggett is also a former NSW police inspector
Former Manly rugby league player Charlie Haggett has revealed he thought he was going to drown on the beach after saving a distressed boy who was fighting for his life in a dangerous crack.
Haggett, a former NSW police commissioner who played at Brookvale for a decade, was relaxing with his wife at Killick Beach on the NSW north coast when he saw a boy in the surf screaming for help.
“I thought, ‘Oh, I’m going to be one of those statistics where someone goes to save someone else and they end up dying,” Haggett shared. News Corp.
‘I thought I was going to die myself. It was full. Whoever was there would have done the same thing.”
The former footy star and several other beachgoers joined in to save the distressed youngster.
Former rugby league player Charlie Haggett thought he was going to drown after saving a teenager fighting for his life in a crack
Haggett dove into the water at Killick Beach on the NSW north coast (pictured) to save the boy, but almost lost his life in the process
‘I was trying to figure out where the crack was. I went to the sandbar and started calling him to me.
‘He started shouting: ‘Save me, save me’.
“It looked like he was going to go, so I jumped in and dragged him across. It was a struggle. He was a big boy. I think he was fourteen. He was panicking.
“I got it on the sandbar and passed it to another guy who was there. I was exhausted dragging him through the water and then the bank collapsed beneath me and I was immediately back in the rip zone.
‘I tried to find the bottom with my legs, but I couldn’t reach it. I sucked in the big ones.
‘I thought then that I was going to die myself. I was stunned. I thought, ‘I’m not going to make this.’ The shore was so close, about 200 feet away, but it seemed miles away.
‘It was deep where the crack was and when I fell back in I went underwater. You have to realize how powerful the water was.
The former Manly star was lucky enough to be thrown boogie water by a rescuer
‘It probably lasted two minutes, but it felt like ten minutes. A guy had a boogie board and he threw it at me. I was lucky.’
Haggett said he wasn’t the only one caught in the crack, with another rescuer getting into trouble during the incident.