Pride of Australia 2018: Teenage lifeguard Jennifer Webb honoured for saving man’s life
NOT even seven-foot swells and ominous weather could stop Jennifer Webb in her pursuit to save a drowning swimmer. The teenage lifeguard was awarded a Pride of Australia medal today for her lifesaving efforts.
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NOT even seven-foot swells and ominous weather could stop Jennifer Webb in her pursuit to save a drowning swimmer.
The brave teenage lifeguard rescued 22-year-old non-swimmer Sayed Hashimi after he was swept 80m out to sea last Easter weekend at Killcare Beach on the Central Coast.
Jennifer, 17, kept Hashimi, from Blacktown, alive by fitting a flotation tube around his body and eventually carrying him up the beach.
“I didn’t hesitate to go out and help him. I just knew I had to, there wasn’t a choice. I wasn’t concerned about myself, I was more worried about getting him back into shore.”
Days later Hashimi took to the Killcare Surf Life Saving Club to write: “Thank you for saving my life.”
“When he was breathing and sitting on the beach I knew I had done something right,” Jennifer said as she accepting her Pride of Australia medal today.
The Pride of Australia awards honour ordinary Australians thrust by fate into life and death situations, police officers, volunteer firefighters, children who have displayed courage beyond their years, those who have raised untold thousands for charity and selfless individuals who have spent their lives in the service of others and the protection of animals.
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Inspired by the Liberty Medal established by the New York Post in the wake of the September 11 attacks, Pride of Australia, championed by the Daily Telegraph, underpins the notion there is no greater measure of a society’s strength than its ability to recognise, learn from and reward its true heroes.
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