Rhodes fires: father had to wade into sea with children on his back

A father who waded neck-deep into the sea with his children on his back to save them from the fires in Rhodes said it was the most frightening moment of his life.

Dan Jones, 37, rushed to get his four children from a beach to a fishing trawler after realising that his family had become trapped between the water and the fire.

Jones, a PE teacher from Exeter, told The Times that he led his elderly parents, his wife, Hannah, 35, and their children — Rupert, 9, Albert, 7, Oliver, 5, and Ethel, 2 — to the coast, where they sought refuge. They were saved by a local skipper on a trawler ferrying people from the beach to a larger vessel waiting in the water.

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