Rhyhan’s ‘a hero’

He's just a typical, chilled-out teenager. He greets his mates with a secret handshake and jolts his head back to say hello – or 'sup” as they say.

He likes hanging out with his friends at the skate park – and doing things teenagers do.


Rhyhan Faithfull is being dubbed a hero. Photo and video by Bruce Barnard.

But that's not how others see him. They're dubbing the 13-year-old Rhyhan Faithfull a hero.

It was 3.30pm on December 13 and Rhyhan was just chilling with his buddies at McLaren Falls moments before he jumped into the water to try and save Pakistan man Muhammad Jawad from drowning.

In front of more than 10 people, Rhyhan climbed down to the rocks and grabbed the man's arm in an attempt to pull him to safety. 'Someone was drowning. I had to go rescue him so I just jumped in.” He didn't think twice about it. 'I was just thinking about trying to save the man.”

Rhyhan says one of the man's friends was already at the water's edge desperately trying to pull him out – but he had to let go and motioned for Rhyhan to help.

Rhyhan tried a little longer, pulling with all his might to bring the man above water.

But he too had to let go to save himself from being dragged under.

Speaking to SunLive three days after the incident, the teenager is quietly reflective of what happened that day.

His eyes drop and his head droops when he remembers the man died that day.

'The man was too heavy for me and I started getting dragged under the water too, so I had to let him go.

'He just sunk straight away,” says Rhyhan.

Images of the man sinking below the surface play over in his head.

'I've been trying not to think about it,” says Rhyhan. There's also a ‘what if?' that plays over in his head.

'What if I died too? What if he lived?”

But the teen, who tried his darndest to save a man's life, comes across as emotionally mature and reassures us he's coping well following the tragedy.

Mention the fact more than 40,000 people have read of his bravery on SunLive's Facebook page and the teen smiles, nods, takes a deep breath and says: 'It feels pretty good”.

He's very humble.

To him, a hero is someone who can help someone else.

'Or someone who does something good in their life,” says Rhyhan.

'That means I'm a pretty good person; and it feels like it.”

His mate's mum Sam Golding was watching the boys jumping off the rocks under the bridge when the scene unfolded. Seeing Rhyhan struggling, she stripped to her bra and three quarter pants and dove in.

'This all happened was within like a minute or even less,” says Sam. 'Right exactly where this guy and Rhyhan were I dived down.

'You could see about a metre down and that was it. There was nothing.”

Sam says she's been having flashbacks of the deep, murky water – and nothing, no-one, to grab hold of.

She's proud of Rhyhan and his selfless actions. 'Rhyhan did really well. He didn't think, he just dove straight in.”

You may also like....

1 comment

Sams a hero as well.

Posted on 21-12-2014 08:17 | By Surfwatch

Well done Sam


Leave a Comment


You must be logged in to make a comment.