'My seven-year-old daughter was saved from drowning in the sea'

BBC News

18-07-2025

A mother has thanked two men who saved her seven-year-old daughter from drowning while on a weekend away.Moira, 33, was with her family in Rhyl when her daughter Shylah and her aunt, who were playing in the sea, got into difficulty and were being swept away.The men Peter Szczepanski from Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, and Ben Malone from The Wirral immediately leapt to the rescue. The mother-of-three, from Manchester, said: "From the bottom of my heart, I just want to thank them both for their bravery and not thinking of themselves and just jumping in and saving my daughter's life.
"Shylah would not still be alive without them."Talking to BBC Radio Stoke, Moira said her daughter was now well and enjoying the media attention she had received in the aftermath.But added that she had become emotional during an end-of-term dance recital, realising her daughter might not have been there had events gone differently on 13 July.She explained that her family had been enjoying a day on the beach and Shylah was playing in the shallows with her aunt.
'Felt like forever'
There was a scream and she noticed that her daughter had been swept into deeper water and was floating out of reaching distance from her aunt.As she was running to help her daughter, Moira saw two men also running to help."It felt like it went on forever, but it must've been a few minutes," she said."My heart sank because she's literally a few metres in front of me, but I'd seen her flip off her floatie."At this point I thought she was going to drown in front of my eyes. I knew I wasn't going to be able to get to her before she gave up – because she was doggy paddling."She said it all happened so suddenly, with Mr Malone and Mr Szczepanski reaching her daughter while she was still swimming out to reach them.
'Instinct'
Mr Szczepanski said he had been at the beach with his five-year-old daughter when he saw what was happening."You just had to do it and save the young girl," he said. "We just did something that a dad would do."Mr Malone added: "I'm lucky I had that instinct to just make that decision quite quickly to go."He said he was at the beach with his girlfriend and two children and that nothing had seemed out of the ordinary at first.Mr Malone said he felt relieved at getting to the little girl, but this turned to worry about possibly feeling too exhausted to get back.He said he then felt relief again at seeing Mr Szczepanski, and the pair passed the little girl between themselves as they swam back to shore.Moira later posted onto a Facebook group to thank them for their help, in the hope that they might see the message."I thanked them when it happened; obviously, then we were trying to look after Shyla, and we were so caught up in the moment that we didn't give them the praise that they deserve," she said.She added that Shyla had been quite upset shortly after the incident but was fine now.
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