Reports have emerged of a Norwegian couple who were hailed heroines after a dramatic boat rescue during the Utoya island massacre.
The story of the couple who braved gunshots to make repeated trips to rescue children from the water has only just come to light.
Hege Dalen and Toril Hansen were spending the summer at the
Utviken campsite overlooking Utoya island when the attack began on 22nd
July.
“We were eating, then came sounds of shooting and then the
awful screaming,” they told Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat. “We saw how the
young people ran in panic into the lake.”
The couple ran to the jetty with fellow campers and took boats into the
water in front of Utoya island, heading in the direction the teenagers were fleeing from.
They pulled the swimmers aboard and ferried them back to the
campsite, braving the gunfire that repeatedly hit their boat. The campers at the Utviken site made numerous trips into the water
and rescued a total of 150 young people, reports the Independent.
This comes a fortnight after it was revealed
that a German tourist rescued 20 teenagers by throwing out lifejackets with
rope attached and pulling them aboard.