Champion ironman reveals heroic act that saved two lives: ‘He was 30 seconds from dying … you could see it in his eyes’

One of Australia’s leading ironman champions has revealed the haunting moment he saw the life leaving a swimmer moments before he saved him from drowning.

Caine Eckstein is a five-time winner of the Coolangatta Gold Ironman race and has set records in Australian surf lifesaving. 

He competed as an elite endurance athlete in Ironman and Surf Life Saving events, known for his strength in both long-distance and high-intensity races. 

Eckstein also broke the world record for most pull-ups in 24 hours in 2014, completing 4210. 

He has also become a hero to a backpacking couple after rescuing them from choppy waters off Byron Bay on the NSW north coast recently.

Eckstein happened to be conducting his first coaching session on Byron Bay’s Main Beach when he saw the two backpackers in trouble in the surf

By a stroke of fortune, Eckstein was holding his first longboard surfing skills session on Main Beach at the popular tourist venue when the alarm sounded because an English holidayer and his girlfriend had hit trouble.

‘It was 5.30pm NSW time [on Wednesday]. I got there about 5pm … I was standing on the beach and I could just see two out there,’ Eckstein told News Corp.

‘There was a northerly so it was pretty rough and dumpy.’

Eckstein could see the couple had become separated after both being taken by a rip, so he leaped into the surf, followed by one of his teenage students. 

He revealed that had they waited a minute longer, they would have had a tragedy on their hands. 

‘She was OK and said, “Go help my boyfriend”,’ Eckstein recalled. 

‘I reckon he was 30 seconds from going out dead. He had no strength and he was just going under … you can see it in their eyes – his were about to give up.’

A tragedy would have occurred if Eckstein and his teenage student took just one more minute to hit the water 

Eckstein praised the actions of his student for helping in the rescue, with the younger surfer ensuring the woman was brought to safety while Eckstein strapped the male swimmer to his board. 

‘We got smashed around a bit because he was holding onto the board pulling us out to sea, so I’m telling him, “Let’s try and turn it, try and turn it”,’ Eckstein said. 

‘I got him on land then raced back out because the girl had separated from the kid’s board again and by the time I got back out to her she was pretty scared.

‘I reached out to her telling her to just hang on to my board.’

Once they were all safely back on the beach, Eckstein said the backpacker revealed how close he was to going under. 

‘The first thing the boyfriend said to me was, “I would have died if you didn’t come out”,’ Eckstein said.

‘It was pretty full-on, he was really close to something bad happening.

‘He didn’t have much longer because they were in a rip that was taking them out and the waves were crashing them back in, so they’re in this vortex … you could see they weren’t going to go anywhere.’