Gascoyne rescue: Semi-retired tourists travelling Australia save 67yo woman caught in rip off Warroora Coast

A travelling couple have rescued a 67-year-old woman clinging to a rock off the remote Gascoyne coast, 200km north of Carnarvon, after she got in trouble after being caught in a rip. On Thursday, August 31, Eric Krins, 59 and Maree Pearson, a semi-retired couple travelling around Australia, were camping at Black Moon Cliff campground on the remote Warroora Coast spending the day beach fishing. After a few flicks and not much of luck, the couple decided to take a walk towards the rock pools along the cliff when Mr Krins said he heard a cry for help. “We just hear this lady yelling screaming ‘help, help, help’,” he said. “We looked down and there was a lady clinging to a rock about 80m out.” Mr Krins said he ran on to the beach towards the ocean and swam out to her. “When I got to her she was exhausted,” he said. “Her adrenaline was enough to get her to scream to get our attention because she saw us.” He said the 67-year-old had used all her energy fighting a rip and she was lucky to have found a rock to hold on to. “I stood on a rock and held her. Every time a wave came I lifted her up so she wouldn’t get washed off the rock. We probably did that for about 15 minutes trying to get some of her energy back, and also myself to, because I’m not a great swimmer,” he said. Mr Krins said after a while, the woman was close to passing out, so he persuaded her to hold on to his shoulder while he swam her into shore. The woman couldn’t stand when they’d reached land, so the couple dragged her in as she crawled away from the shoreline. Mr Krins raced off and found someone to call triple-0 while Ms Pearson stayed to keep the woman awake when they discovered her son was still out in the water diving. “We we’re on the beach for probably an hour and a quarter I suppose, trying to work out what we were going to do to try and get colour back into her because she was going blue and she was in a lot of shock,” Mr Krins said. “We ended up getting blankets and some sugary drinks and an icy pole to put down her throat, then the co-host of the camping area came down with a little buggy and we put her in and drove her back (to the camp site).” Mr Krins estimated the woman was in the water for more than an hour and said she might not have survived if they hadn’t been walking along the isolated beach. He said she’d become tired of diving with her son and decided to swim into shore by herself while he stayed out to find a crayfish for dinner. “If we weren’t on the beach she would have drowned, for sure. She got to that rock and she couldn’t have gone any further, she was stuck,” he said. “The only footprints on that beach were from us . . . hardly anybody goes there.” Mr Krins said she had done everything right, wearing a wet suit and flippers, she just didn’t realise she would get caught in a rip. “I was a bit worried first swimming out because it was like am I going to be able to carry her back because I’m not a great swimmer,” he said. With an unforgettable story to add to their adventure, the couple will make their way to Denham to explore more of WA’s coastline before travelling down to Perth.