- Five-time Coolangatta Gold champion became a hero
- Revealed how rescue effort barely averted tragedy
One of Australia’s leading Ironman champions has revealed the disturbing moment he watched a swimmer’s life slip away moments before saving him from drowning.
Caine Eckstein is a five-time winner of the Coolangatta Gold Ironman race and has set Australian surf lifesaving records.
He competed as an elite endurance athlete in Ironman and Surf Life Saving events, known for his strength in both long-distance and high-intensity running.
Eckstein also broke the world record for most pull-ups in 24 hours in 2014, completing 4,210.
He has also become a hero to a backpacking couple after recently rescuing them from rough waters off Byron Bay on the New South Wales north coast.
Caine Eckstein is an ironman champion and five-time winner of the Coolangatta Gold
Eckstein was doing his first training session on Byron Bay’s main beach when he saw the two backpackers in trouble in the waves.
By a stroke of luck, Eckstein was doing his first longboard surfing skills session on Main Beach at the popular tourist spot when the alarm went off because an English tourist and his girlfriend had gotten into trouble.
‘It was 5:30pm New South Wales time (Wednesday). “I got there around 5 p.m….I was standing on the beach and I could see two out there,” Eckstein said. news corporation.
“There was a north wind, so it was pretty rough and bumpy.”
Eckstein could see that the couple had become separated after they were both swept away by a wave, so he jumped into the waves, followed by one of his teenage students.
He revealed that if they had waited one more minute, they would have had a tragedy on their hands.
“She was fine and said, ‘Go help my boyfriend,'” Eckstein recalled.
‘I estimate he was 30 seconds away from dying. He had no strength and he was just sinking… you can see it in his eyes: his were about to give up.’
A tragedy would have occurred if Eckstein and his teenage student had taken just one minute longer to reach the water.
Eckstein praised his student’s actions for assisting in the rescue, and the younger surfer made sure the woman was taken to safety while Eckstein tied the swimmer to his board.
“We got a little crushed because he was holding on to the board that was dragging us out to sea, so I said, ‘Let’s try to turn it, try to turn it,'” Eckstein said.
“I took him ashore and then ran away because the girl had gotten separated from the boy’s board again and when I got back to her she was quite scared.
“I went up to her and told her to keep my board.”
Once they were all safely on the beach, Eckstein said the backpacker revealed how close he was to sinking.
“The first thing my boyfriend said to me was, ‘I would have died if you hadn’t come out,'” Eckstein said.
“It was quite intense, it was very close to something bad happening.
“They didn’t have much more time because they were in a rip that was pulling them out and the waves were crashing them back in, so they were in this vortex…you could see they weren’t going anywhere.”