He is Daniel Kinsella, a 16-year-old Liverpudlian who recently rescued three separate groups of paddleboarders in the family canoe.
North Wales Live in the UK suggested young Daniel may have felt like he was paying a bill he owed – his own life having been saved twice as a victim of childhood cancer.
His love of the sea – the passion that led him to gain his junior yacht pilot certification – developed through repeated sea voyages to the Welsh island of Anglesey; a way of trying to save a part of his childhood from being remembered only by trips to chemotherapy appointments.
The story began at Christmas 2012, when at just four years old, bruising, yellowing of the skin and rashes led to Daniel being rushed to hospital and diagnosed with leukemia. A long period of chemotherapy awaited Daniel and, as part of the treatment plan, doctors at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool recommended a PICC line (peripherally inserted central catheter).
Daniel’s parents, Mike and Michelle, were hesitant. Imagining the family tradition of summer weekends to go camping beside Trearddur Bay on the Isle of Anglesey, they couldn’t bear to imagine Daniel staying dry because of the PICC while his friends and cousins were splashing in the water.
Instead, they insisted on getting a Portacath, a small plastic chamber surgically implanted under the skin that allows its users to go swimming.
“Knowing what Daniel was facing, we wanted him to continue to experience relative normalcy,” Michelle said. “He loves going there and he loves the water, and we didn’t want him to be left out while all his friends were having fun. We knew life would be hard enough for him without being deprived of his friends and the sea.”
Daniel then underwent three years of chemo at Alder Hey, and it seemed to be going well. He would eventually be declared cancer-free in 2016, but not before suffering a life-threatening case of pneumonia during a spring trip to Anglesey. He was rushed to hospital in Bangor, Wales, and put on oxygen, before being discharged after a week-long stay with scarred lungs.
Although the trip to Anglesey may have put Daniel to the grave, his parents’ persistence in maintaining the family tradition planted roots of interests and character that are now germinating as their boy gradually becomes a man.
His love of the sea grew into a passion for tackling plastic pollution, and his hometown newspaper, the Liverpool Echo, reported that just after his cancer went into remission at the age of 8 , he had already become a strong advocate for selective recycling in his community. .
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In Anglesey, Michelle’s father-in-law Paddy, an accomplished boater and fisherman, taught his step-grandson everything he knew about tides, maps and navigation. As well as passing all his SATs despite missing two years of school due to chemotherapy, he had mastered the Royal Yachting Association basics of sailing and powerboats, which allowed him to drive his family’s rigid inflatable dinghy. family.
“Mike and I tried to give Daniel the best, because so much of his childhood was taken away from him,” Michelle said. “We really tried to compensate, I guess.”
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Back in the present day, on a recent trip to the island of Anglesey, Daniel was piloting the dinghy with family and friends on board when he received a distress call on channel 16, the radio frequency for all maritime emergencies in the UK. A family of paddleboarders had become stranded on rocks after a strong wind near the shore carried them much further than they had planned to go.
In accordance with child-to-adult passenger ratios (part of Royal Yachting Association rules), he turned around to drop off his friends before returning to rescue the family, who were just one of three groups of paddleboarders whom Daniel saved that day; all victims of the nearby wind.
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“I was very proud of him for helping people and how he runs our boat,” Michelle said. “It was a beautiful sunny day but that can be deceiving. The wind can blow you away and you can’t go back. It may be hot on the beach but the water is freezing.
His love of the sea is matched only by his fascination with the skies, and the Daily Post reports that his dream is to join the RAF.
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