Dane, who has lived in the coastal town his entire life, was surfing in a four metre swell on the eastern side of Horseshoe Bay on Sunday February 24 when he noticed his friend Sam was entering the water from the rocks to the east.

It was by chance that at that exact moment, Sam was alerted to two swimmers on the western side of the bay, who were struggling to stay afloat.

"When you're out there surfing, you are looking towards the east because that's where the waves are coming from. You never look towards the western rocks so it was very lucky Sam arrived at that time," Dane told the Argus.

Read more: Tourists rescued from rip at South West Rocks

Sam motioned to Dane to look towards the west and the two quickly raced to the swimmer's aid.

"I couldn't tell if they were experienced swimmers or if they were novices," Sam said.

"As I got closer I could tell they weren't. They were flapping around and going under the water and yelling out for help as soon as they came back up."

As Dane was already in the water, he reached the two struggling men first.

One managed to latch onto the rocks and climbed to safety but the other was copping the full force of the large swell.

Dane was quick to get the man onto his surf board.

"He was a big fella and really struggling. It was intense. He was in a lot of trouble," Dane said.

"The waves had been smashing him and he had swallowed a lot of water.

"I wasn't sure if he was going to panic and pull me under so I bailed off my board and pushed him onto it.

"We copped a couple of waves and he fell off and went under but I held him by the wrist and pulled him back up."

Luckily Sam arrived and was able to help stabilise the man but they were far from safe as the rough conditions made it impossible to swim the man to shore.

"We were only about 20 metres away from the beach but the rip was still pulling us out," Sam said.

"People on the beach had seen what was happening and alerted some life savers (Mick Barkl and Josh MacLaren) who grabbed the rubber duckie and came and got him safely to shore."

By that time, the man had swallowed a lot of water and Dane believes he also spent time dropping in and out of consciousness.

"He was in a bad way and we heard he spent the next 25 minutes vomiting but the ambulance took him away and we learned later on that he was going to be okay," Dane said.

"There was still a chance of him suffering secondary drowning so we felt a lot better once we knew he was alright.

"The other guy had cuts all over him from the rocks but he wasn't too bad."

Dane also performed a rescue of a young girl on Monday March 4.

The 28-year-old was sitting on his board waiting for a wave when he heard people on the beach yelling and pointing to the same spot on the western end of Horseshoe Bay.

Dane saw the young girl in the water and quickly paddled towards her.

"She didn't look too bad but she was struggling quite a bit," he said.

"I put her in front of me on my board and paddled out, around and back in and once we were close enough to shore she jumped off and swam in."

Dane said the conditions on the day were a bit choppy but only small waves.

The local has seen many people get caught in the western end rip over the years and warns people to be aware of the conditions before entering the water.

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