Two teenage girls rescue elderly couple from riptide whilst holidaying in Barbados
Disaster was luckily averted after two heroic teen girls rescued an elderly British couple whilst on holiday.
Emma Bassermann, 13, and 14-year-old Zoe Ireland-Meklensek, from Montreal, Canada, rescued Belinda and Robert Stone from London, UK on January 3 when they got caught in a riptide in the Barbados sea.
The couple, who are in their 60s, were enjoying the ocean when suddenly they were trapped by a riptide - leaving them unable to escape.
Advert
Belinda explained to the Washington Post on Wednesday (January 17) that they had ‘swam out, not that far but enough to be out of our depth’.
The pair had considered themselves capable swimmers, so they were 'fairly confident' when going into the water.
However, they did not realise that the area was pretty notorious for strong riptides.
When Belinda tried to swim against the strong current, she realised that her husband couldn’t keep up - and soon enough he was 'suddenly too far away to even hear her'.
After attempting to swim to the nearest beach, Belinda then began to call out for help for a few minutes, telling the publication that she was glad the couple had 'left our wills on the dining room table' as she shouted out again.
That was when Emma, who is training for the Olympics, and Zoe, who is also a competitive swimmer, spotted them.
Speaking to City News, Zoe said: “I heard their cries in the water.”
While Emma added: “Our adrenaline kicked in and everything that we learned came back to us in that moment.”
Swimming parallel to the beach, the two teens helped Belinda to climb onto their boogie board.
Zoe said: “She said her husband was further out, and he was struggling to swim.
“I told her to hold on tight, and I strapped the boogie board tether to my wrist. Emma was by my side for support.”
So the pair took back to the water and swam out 165 feet to help Robert, reassuring him that ‘his wife was okay, and he was going to be okay'.
Emma said that the couple were incredibly grateful, thanking them repeatedly.
"They were talking about how stressed they were and how they got pulled apart and how the ocean was really, really strong and the undertow took them out to the ocean." she said.
Belinda was so impressed by their ‘calmness’ during the event, calling them 'a couple of angels on that beach'.
However, according to Zoe, it's something that anyone would do in a similar situation.
Adding: "If you see someone in danger, you go out and you act on it and you help them."
Britt Jones