11-Year-Old Girl Along With Dad Swims 4 Hours For Life After Yacht Sinks Mid-Sea

An 11-year-old girl swam for nine km with her father after their yacht struck a reef and disintegrated in the ocean Sunday morning.

The child and her father were with a party of three others when their vessel crashed off Jurien Bay, more than 200 kilometers north of Perth in Australia, reports ABC News.

Glee Anderson and his daughter Ruby spent four agonizing hours in the rough sea before being spotted by the Jurien Bay Marine Rescue.

After surviving the ordeal, Anderson told reporters that giving up "was not an option" for the duo. The duo were both in the cockpit of the vessel when they were thrown into the water. "Myself and my daughter Ruby... we got knocked out of the boat into the water," Anderson was quoted by Perth Now.

The rescue team was alerted of the incident after the Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon attached to the body of one of the victims activated. While the three adults were rescued two-and-a-half hours later, the girl and her father had drifted away from the group.

According to Anderson, they managed to put life jackets on and he struggled desperately to keep his daughter’s head above water.

"There was no way we could give up, stopping wasn’t an option. I kept saying to her (Ruby) we were going to make it," he said. He added that they were so exhausted that Ruby could barely speak or say her name after they were rescued. While Anderson survived with only a gash to his head, Ruby has fractures in her leg.

The other three people are being treated for shock and hypothermia. Fortunately, all on board were wearing life jackets.

Authorities believe that the vessel might have taken five minutes to sink from when it was hit by the wave. "It was smashed up, there was lots of debris in the water so the boat actually disintegrated," said Jurien Bay Marine Rescue Deputy Commander Wayne Harston.

Harston added that the weather was so bad that the rescue team had to turn back and return in a larger boat to continue with the search.

Jurien Bay Police later took to Twitter to detail the rescue effort. "Thank you to our professional and volunteer boating community, along with air assets who searched today for five people that had been washed overboard," they said.

"After searching for (approximately) four hours, all five were located and being treated in hospital," the tweet read.