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Which statement is true according to the text?
1
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An ‘amazing feat’: how was a 13-year-old boy able to swim for four hours to save his family?
By Donna Lu
- An Australian 13-year-old who swam 4 km to shore and then ran 2 km to get help for his
- stranded family has been described as “superhuman”. Experts say Austin’s feat of endurance
- exceeded the limits of what is normally perceived as possible. So how was the teenager able to
- save the day, and is there any precedent for it?
- Austin and his family were ____ holiday when strong winds pushed their inflatable
- paddleboards and kayak offshore ____ Friday afternoon. His mother told him to swim ashore to
- seek help. Initially setting off ____ a kayak, Austin had to abandon the vessel after it took on
- too much water in the rough conditions. About two hours into his four-hour swim, he ditched the
- lifejacket he was wearing. Once he had swum the 4 km to shore in fading light, the teenager ran
- 2 km to his family’s accommodation, using his mother’s phone to call emergency services ____
- around 6 pm. After the call, he passed out ____ exhaustion and was taken to the hospital. His
- family was rescued floating about 14 km offshore. Austin was given crutches to help his sore legs
- bear his weight.
- Prof David Bishop, a muscle exercise physiologist, said fight-or-flight situations can enable
- athletes – and ordinary people – “to go beyond what their perceived limits are”. There have been
- other reports of preternatural strength. The phenomenon has sometimes been referred to as
- “hysterical strength”, though the origin of the term is unclear.
- In a 1961 study, researchers found that people were immediately stronger at a forearm
- flexion task when frightened, after shooting a starting pistol next to participants’ ears without
- warning. Anthony Blazevich, a professor of biomechanics, said the release of fight-or-flight
- hormones had an impact. “If you get highly motivated, if you have some fear, you’re going to be
- releasing adrenaline, noradrenaline, other stress hormones like cortisol, which dump a whole
- bunch of sugar into your blood,” he said. But for activities lasting hours – in the case of Austin’s
- swim – “eventually these systems do get depleted”, Blazevich said. The periods of recovery
- afforded by survival backstroke – a swimming style aimed at conserving energy – may have been
- critical, particularly in saltwater, where floating was relatively feasible.
- Blazevich’s research has shown that children can perform as well as highly trained adult
- endurance athletes. “What kids do is recover incredibly rapidly, as good as elite endurance
- athletes,” he said. However, adults have larger hearts and lungs, and central nervous systems
- that do “not seem to fatigue as fast”, he said. “This is probably why kids play on an intermittent
- basis … They run, stop, run, stop, but they do it all day,” Blazevich said.
- Austin told the ABC that he had started swimming lessons when he was four – but had
- previously found it “quite tiring” to swim 350 metres without a break.
(Fight-or-flight: used to describe the reaction that people have to a dangerous situation, that makes them either stay and deal with it, or run away)
(Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/feb/05/austin-appelbee-13-year-old-boyswims-four-hours-rescue-save-family-western-australia – text specially adapted for this test).
Which statement is true according to the text?
A
Adults recover faster than children after intense physical activity.
B
Children generally have larger hearts and lungs than adults.
C
Age was not considered relevant in the analysis.
D
Children cannot perform as well as trained adult athletes.
E
Children may recover quickly despite adults having physical advantages.