>
How four terrified teenagers survived a freezing night at a top-secret military base after being swept out to sea on their paddle boards: “It’s a miracle, I can’t believe I made it”
- Four teenagers, three 18 and one 19, spent 10 hours in the sea on paddleboards
- The group started at Rosebud Beach but floated over 20 km to Swan Island.
- Swan Island is a secret military base in southwestern Victoria Port Phillip Bay
- The group of teens was discovered after leaving a storage shed at 9 a.m. Tuesday.
A group of four school leavers who spent seven hours at a secret military base after floating 20km off a beach on inflatable paddle boards have revealed how they survived the harrowing night.
Rong Shi, 18, said he and his friends, two boys, also 18, and a girl, 19, were discovered by military security in a storage hut on Swan Hill on Tuesday at 9 a.m. after move away from Rosebud Beach to the south of Melbourne in the south-east. part of Victoria’s Port Phillip Bay, at 4:00 pm Monday.
They had entered the water on two inflatable paddle boards, but Mr. Shi said their adventure began to turn sour when they noticed the wind picking up.
Four teenagers, three 18-year-olds and one 19-year-old, floated more than 20 km from Victoria’s Rosebud Beach to the Swan Hill military base on inflatable paddle boards for 10 grueling hours (a map of Rosebud Beach and Swan Island is pictured)
“Suddenly, it was like a wind was blowing us away from the beach,” he told the abc from his hospital bed.
It quickly got to the point where the group could no longer see the beach, so they began yelling at the nearby boats and waving their arms in the hope that someone would notice them. But no one did.
In their effort to attract attention, two of the group fell into the water, leaving them drenched and shivering on the boards.
With darkness descending and temperatures plummeting, they decided to join the two boards and stay as still as possible.
The group planned to save energy to survive the night.
Rong Shi (above) said he and his friends had almost given up hope when they landed on the island and thanked their rescuers.
‘There was a point where we were really tired. When I closed my eyes, I felt like I couldn’t feel my hands… if I closed my eyes, I might not open them again,” Shi said.
He added that the worst part was seeing helicopters flying overhead looking for the group but not being able to get their attention.
After an unimaginable 10 hours at sea on one of Australia’s largest harbor shipping lanes, the group finally made landfall on Swan Island around 2am.
They didn’t know it at the time, but they had landed in a top-secret military fort that was built in the 1870s.
Shi said he and his friends were “excited” to make landfall and quickly found a storage hut to take shelter.
The group spent 10 hours in the water after floating out to sea around 4 p.m. Monday (a search and rescue boat pictured)
It wasn’t until they left the shed at 9am on Tuesday that they were discovered by security.
The group was provided with cool water, protein bars, cookies and tea as military personnel celebrated their rescue.
Shi said he and his friends want to thank “everyone” who helped them return home safely, particularly the emergency services who spent the night looking for them.
“Also the taxpayers so we could get a helicopter looking for us, and that really gave us hope,” he said.
‘It still seems like a dream to me… I can’t believe we made it. If you look back, it’s really, it’s a miracle.