Apollo Bay drowning: ‘Heroic’ Melbourne marketing executive praised after bringing three unconscious men to shore

A young woman who pulled three unconscious men from the surf has recounted her heroic life-saving actions, revealing she acted impulsively and “did everything she could” to save them.

One man died but two others were rescued at Apollo Bay, on the Great Ocean Road south of Melbourne, after Brianna Hurst, 33, sprang into action on Sunday afternoon.

Ms Hurst, a marketing executive from Melbourne, had taken her Labrador Tobi for a walk and was sitting on the sand at Marengo Beach when she heard a man screaming for help.

“I took action without really thinking about what I was doing,” Ms Hurst, a former swimming teacher, told reporters.

“Looking back, I feel like I did everything I could have done to help them.”

Ms Hurst took about five minutes to pull the three men in their 20s to shore, one by one, after finding them floating face down in the water.

“It was pretty hard. I had to swim to catch it, about 20 meters. He was quite heavy, he’s a lot bigger than me,” Ms Hurst said.

“They were all unconscious when I pulled them out.”

Other beachgoers helped perform CPR and called an ambulance, but tragically one of the men died.

As of Monday afternoon, one of the men remained in a critical condition at Alfred Hospital and the other was in a stable condition at Barwon Health in Geelong.

Victoria Police Senior Sergeant Stephen Bull praised Ms Hurst for “putting herself in extreme danger” to save others.

“She put herself in harm’s way to save three people she didn’t know, at great risk to herself, so I can’t use any other word than heroic,” Sergeant Bull told reporters .

Ms Hurst downplayed her heroism and said she simply happened to be in the right place at the right time.

“It was probably luck that I felt confident in the water and that didn’t stop me from helping them,” she said.

She warned unconfident swimmers not to enter the water.

“I would classify it as a dangerous beach,” Ms Hurst added.

Life saving Victoria’s Paul Shannon said the summer of 2023-24 had been the state’s worst for drownings.

There have been 27 deaths since December 1 last year.

“It’s been a pretty tragic summer, we’re tied for the worst summer since records were kept,” Mr Shannon told reporters.

He urged people to only swim between flags and download the Beachsafe app to check conditions before swimming at unsupervised beaches.