A Wickham teenager who survived a “scary” 16-hour ordeal after becoming stranded while free-diving off the Pilbara coast swam for up to seven hours and thought he was going to die before he finally reached land.
Mr Saylor, who had been free-diving with three friends on Monday, was found about 6.40am on a beach on the south side of Delambre Island, by West Pilbara Marine Rescue.
After being released from Karratha’s Nickol Bay Hospital on Tuesday morning, Steven Saylor described how he swam for hours in rough conditions before he hit the shore at Delambre Island, off the coast of Wickham.
“Everything (was going through my head), am I going to die, just everything,” Steven told ABC Radio.
“My main focus was just to get to land and I wasn’t worried about anything else, just to get home.
“It was dark when I hit land, but I was just looking up at the Rio Tinto wharf and I knew where Delambre (Island) was from there, so I just swam in that direction and found it which was pretty lucky.
“I was swimming for about five to seven hours maybe, it’s crazy.
“I am not a good swimmer, but I just swam, I just didn’t want to die, that was my main focus, I just swam.”
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