Your hero, ladies and gentlemen. Photos: Lucas Tozzi (L) | Nate Smith (R)
Kai Otton and his father Greg saved the lives of two canoers on the south coast of New South Wales yesterday. The two were at Bithry Inlet when a nasty rip current swept the father, 40, and son, 7, roughly 100 meters out to sea.
Greg Otton, a retired abalone diver, was the first to the rescue as he spotted the 7-year-old son in serious danger. Kai was next pulling the boy’s father out from the current. The rescued father was so spent that when the two tried to make it back in, he couldn’t hold on to the canoe for support.
The elder Otton was quoted by ABC Australia as saying, “‘Everything ended up happy, but it was so close to a double fatality,’ he said. ‘It was absolutely mind-bending what they were doing in that part of the estuary. Total inexperience, total lack of knowledge of anything to do with rips and tides and waterways.'”
Kai Otton won his first ASP World Tour event this past year at the Rip Curl Pro Portugal in Peniche.
