Footage of the moment when four Aussie surfers were rescued from Indonesian waters has surfaced on Instagram, and it’s truly incredible.
ICYMI: Elliot Foote, Steph Weisse, Will Teagle and Jordan Short were found alive after their speedboat struck rough weather during their travels to the remote Banyak Islands on Sunday night.
Ben Cradock (@bennycradock), who appears to be a close friend of the group, has recently posted footage from the incredible rescue. In the Instagram story, three of the tourists can be seen floating on top of their boards. An uproar of screams and words of encouragement are yelled from both in front and behind the camera.
It’s a ton of wooing and hell yeah-ing!
Towards the end of the video, someone can be heard asking about the whereabouts of Elliot. However, there was no answer to that question. According to The Australian, Elliot was found 90 minutes later at a surf camp in the Bay of Plenty, where he paddled to get help.
The video was followed by a picture of Elliot, who was showing off some of the injuries he sustained whilst he was missing.
Peter Foote, the father of Elliot, thanked Australia and the media for helping them with their search efforts, per 7News
“A lot of people were looking today. But they’ve been in the water a long time, I don’t know how they’re going to be health-wise. But they’re found, they’re alive, they’re well. It’s all good, it’s fantastic news. It’s unbelievable actually, I’m so stoked about that,” Peter said.
To give you a quick recap on the series of events: the missing-now-found tourists travelled through Sumatra and the island of Nias with eight others for Elliot’s 30th birthday.
The group, who were all surfers, were keen on travelling to Pinang in Banyaks in two separate boats. Unfortunately, the boats came face-to-face with bad weather. One of the boats made it to the island after miraculously taking shelter from the storm, while the other one went missing.
In a third round of posts, Ben shared a recount of what happened to the Aussie tourists, confirming that only one Indonesian crew member was still missing. The post also praised Elliot’s friends on the other boat for their efforts.
“With minimal resources on our island, the non-eight missing Australians were able to coordinate a search mission, chain of events, chain of assets and chain of communication, which joined forced [sic] and made the situation accessible, clear and up to date to all relevant people at all times,” the post reads.
It’s honestly so gut-punching when you hear about loved ones potentially getting hurt whilst they’re overseas and on the job — which is the case for the Indonesian workers.
According to Ben’s post, the final crewmember’s search mission has now changed to a “retrieval mission” as it’s now feared that they’ve passed away. We hope that the crewmember is found and returned to their loved ones.
Image Source: Instagram / @bennycadock
