Man rescues girls from freak wave

A holidaymaker who rescued two teenage girls after they were swept into the sea by a freak wave at a holiday beach was being hailed as a hero yesterday.

Paul Date, 32, from Hounslow, west London, plunged into the waves at West Bay, Dorset, to pull the two teenagers to safety after they were sucked out by the undertow. "But for him we could have been looking at fatalities," said acting Sergeant David Hughes of the Dorset police. The 17-year-olds, Rebecca Brown and Donna Bracey, from Bristol, were airlifted to Weymouth and District Hospital suffering from water inhalation and slight hypothermia. Donna's 11-year-old sister Carly, who also went into the water, was taken to the same hospital by ambulance suffering from slight hypothermia and shock. A Weymouth hospital spokesman said that the girls were discharged later and were "all fine".