Trainee lifesaver uses beer keg to save father and son caught in rip
Most people would agree an empty beer keg is pretty useless.
But the random item, usually found stacked in the back room of your local pub, played a vital role in saving a dad and his four-year-old son, who got caught in a rip on one of Queensland's notoriously dangerous beaches on Friday morning.
Marcoola Beach, on the Sunshine Coast, was unpatrolled at the time, but thankfully for the struggling duo, a trainee lifesaver who was meant to do his bronze medallion course on the Saturday, got his days mixed up and happened to be there by chance.
Subscribe to the Today newsletter here. Nine
Matt was at Marcoola Beach ready to do his bronze medallion training course. Today
READ MORE: Kitchen gifts and gadgets for the food lover this Christmas
"I was sitting around and nobody's here so I thought, 'Oh, I've got my times wrong,'" Matt Neale told Today.
So Matt, who is also a veteran, decided to walk down to the sand and do a risk assessment since he was already there.
"I looked out in the distance and I see a father waving for help and he had a little boy with him, so I've turned around, bolted back to the clubhouse and with no one around, I had to improvise," he said.
"I saw a beer keg on the side of the building, so I bolted down the beach - about a 300 metre run - and I got to the water, but then the surf was smashing me with the keg because those things sit on top of the water."
But thankfully, the keg held its shape and Matt reached the pair, who had managed to get out of the rip by this stage.
"The surf was crashing him with his boy and I've yelled out 'For Christ's sake, hang on, I've got a full keg here,' I didn't have the heart to tell him that it was empty," he laughed.
"I couldn't see them because the surf was too high, so I was just hoping that they were both still there."
When he realised no one was around, Matt improvised and used an empty beer keg to help the struggling father and son. Today
Noosa Heads CEO, Craig Masterton (R) said he will give Matt (L) a couple of non-alcoholic cartons and a tour of the brewery for his troubles. Today
READ MORE: Is this the world's most beautiful public toilet block?
The keg Matt used was a Noosa Heads one and the brewery's CEO, Craig Masterton, told Today he offered the local hero a couple of cases, but there's just one problem.
"Matt actually doesn't drink alcohol, but we've got a non-alcoholic that we can give him a couple of cartons of," he said.
"And I think we're going to hang out at the brewery and it's a good little story there with the keg, so we're actually going to chop it in half and half will live at our place and half will live here at McCullough Surf Club."
Hear the full chat with Matt and Craig in the video above
We’d love to hear from you
