Hero 7-Year-Old Swims For 1 Hour To Get Help For Stranded Dad, Sister

A 7-year-old boy in Jacksonville, Florida, saved his stranded family last week by swimming to shore for an hour and contacting authorities for help.

Chase Poust was swimming with his 4-year-old sister, Abigail, Friday around their boat anchored in St. Johns River near Mandarin Point when a strong current separated the girl from the boat, WJXT reported.

The 7-year-old said Abigail, who was wearing a life jacket, let go of the boat due to the current, so he also let go in order to try to keep her from drifting. But it left both of them stuck in the water.

"I felt really scared," Chase said.

Steven Poust, the children's father who was fishing when the current came in, jumped into the water to save the kids. He tried to grab Abigail as he told Chase to swim to shore.

"I told them I loved him because I wasn’t sure what’s going to happen," the father recounted. "I tried to stick with both of them. I wore myself out. She drifted away from me."

Chase, who, like his father, did not have a life jacket on, continued to swim to shore. According to him, he doggie paddled and floated on his back to make sure he would not get tired.

"The current was going the opposite way of going to the boat and the shore so it was very hard to swim that way," he said.

The boy reached land around an hour later and ran to the nearest home to ask for help.

Members of the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department (JFRD) were able to rescue the father and 4-year-old more than a mile away from their boat an hour after Chase reached the shore.

The JFRD said the successful rescue was a "miraculous effort" by the department, the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

JFRD spokesperson Eric Prosswimmer said in a news conference that the outcome would have been different without the help of the other agencies, CNN reported.

"We had every resource we could have possibly had coming quickly and we're happy to say all three have been recovered, all three are doing well," he said.