“I saw someone had been injured on their board and just instinctively went over to them to see if they were OK, which they weren’t and then I helped them. I was quite scared at the beginning that I wouldn’t be able to lift him because he’s quite a big guy but I just had the determination to help him.”
“I knew he had a big board strapped to his leg and if I tried to go in and a wave came and he gets hit off, he’d get dragged in and I might lose sight of him – it could’ve just got so much worse.”
Oscar flipped the SUP over and got the man on the board.
The man, Mr Boden said “He was trying to hang on to me and trying to wave and I was saying ‘don’t leave me kid, don’t leave me’ and he was saying ‘I won’t leave you, I won’t leave you’.”
Oscar reassured him,
“I started to calm him down because he almost started panicking and he was worrying about what was going to happen next but I just tried to keep him calm whilst waving to my dad and Neil.”
Danny his dad said: “The first way we realised something was wrong was when we just saw two dots close together and a small arm waving frantically with the correct signals of a surfer in distress in the water.”
Coastguards and other surfers weren’t able to reach them so A RNLI inshore lifeboat was called.
“I’m really proud of Oscar. He was just amazing, he saved a life.”
Oscar ripping. Photo Neil Phillips
