80 year old son saves fisherman

80 year old son saves fisherman

80 year old son saves fisherman - An 80-year-old retired navy seaman and his 55-year-old son rescued a 64-year-old fisherman who fell off a wall into rough seas at Yamba this morning.
"This other fella, I reckon he owes him his life really," said Les Cook, 80, who watched his son Kevin squeeze through a narrow crevice in the rock wall and dive into the ocean to save the man.

The 64-year-old had packed up his fishing gear when he slipped and fell backwards over the eight-metre-high break wall, Mr Cook said.Waves battered the man against the rocks. The dozen or so fishermen standing on the wall feared the worst, having seen others drown there over the years, Mr Cook said.
Within seconds, his son Kevin, had squeezed his "10 stone" frame through a crack in the wall and dived into the ocean.
"To give you an idea how narrow it was, he had to take his phone out of his pocket," Mr Cook said.
The younger Mr Cook grabbed on to the man, who had "half his face smashed open", and who was slipping into a crevice, fighting waves that were lapping over his head.
Mr Cook snr, who over the years has "seen a couple of dead ones" and once hauled a drowned man in with his trawl net, knew they had little time.
He threw his jacket down from his perch eight metres above his son, and told Kevin to tie the arms of the jacket around the man's chest. The father then hurled down a rope, and his son tied the rope to the jacket, fashioning an abseil.
"We've been doing it for years," said Mr Cook, who has been fishing off the Yamba break wall since 1966 and says he has done "about a half dozen" rescues with his son.
The Cooks hauled the man up on to a rock "about halfway" up the wall while they waited for rescuers.
An ambulance arrived first, then the police, and then a sea rescue boat, Mr Cook said.
"When the ambulance came out I said to them, 'It's no good getting an ambulance,'" Mr Cook said.
"I was in the navy and I did a lot of air-sea rescue. I said, 'It's no good getting the police, it's no good getting an ambulance'. I said the best thing is a helicopter."
In the early 1950s, Mr Cook was an able seaman on the HMAS Bataan, a tribal class destroyer in the Korean War.
On the Yamba rocks, the Cooks kept a tight grip on the man, who was barely conscious, while they waited for the helicopter.
"The fella was in Disneyland," Mr Cook said.
"Kevin said, 'The sea's not getting you today mate, I got ya ... It's not getting you unless it gets me too."'
The helicopter arrived within 45 minutes and winched the man to safety.
The 64-year-old remains in a serious condition at Maclean Hospital, having suffered head injuries and a fractured arm, a spokesperson for the Ambulance Service of NSW said.