Photo: Newquay Boardriders // Instagram
Newquay is the heart of British surfing, a fact that recently paid off for a local swimmer in distress. At the popular surf break in Fistral Beach, on the north coast of Cornwall, England, a teenage girl fell into the water and was rescued by a pair of nearby surfers.
The incident happened around 8:00 p.m., local time, when Danny Riley and his friend (reports called him “Rusty”), both 27, were surfing and noticed a commotion nearby. “We spotted someone waving and screaming,” Riley told the BBC. “At first we thought it was just someone swimming, but it was a really sketchy spot.”
The distressed swimmer was a 15 or 16-year-old girl who fell off the nearby rocks into the water, as the BBC reports. She was then caught in a rip current that swept her to a rocky area known as the “gulley.” “She was being thrown over the rocks like being in a washing machine,” described Riley.
When the pair of surfers realized she was in distress, they knew it was time to act. They paddled over and Rusty managed to get the girl on his board, as Riley assisted. “Rusty was grabbing the back of my leg as I paddled. It was all a bit manic,” he said. “Probably not a perfect rescue, but we got there in the end.”
“Hats off to you for stepping up and making a solid rescue at the north gulley last night,” wrote Newquay Boardriders in the caption of an Instagram video of the rescue. “She would have been 100 percent gone if it was not for these boys.”
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