A 17-year-old boy recounted how he spent three hours in the sea on Saturday before being rescued by the army after he jumped into the water to escape an unprovoked attack by seven youths.

Frank Borg wrote to The Times noting that reports that his son Aaron was rescued because he found himself in distress while swimming with his friends at about midnight on Saturday were wrong.

Aaron said he jumped into the sea after being chased by a group of about seven boys he had never seen before and who were about his own age.

He said he was alone near Escobar eating a slice of pizza when the boys, “who looked like they were up to no good”, ganged up and started following him. They chased him down the Paceville steps towards St George’s Bay, where he jumped into the sea to escape, Aaron said.

“I swam quite far out and got really tired. The wind and currents on that day were strong and I couldn’t swim ashore,” he recounted. Swimming as fast as he could to get away from the boys, Aaron only stopped when he ran out of breath. Battling the waves to return to shore, he spent three hours at sea before being rescued by the AFM.

“I started yelling for help and someone from a nearby hotel heard my screams,” he said. Hotel guests called the police, who were on the scene within about 30 minutes. Two patrol boats pulled the boy out of the water about half a mile off Dragonara point. The ordeal, still fresh in the boy’s mind, kept him from eating, his father said. “The more time passes, the more the trauma surfaces,” Mr Borg said, adding that, while at sea, his son had imagined a yacht had come to save him.

“I spoke to a soldier who rescued Aaron who told me he was found rolling in the sea, already suffering from hypothermia and semi-unconscious. This soldier kept telling me how lucky Aaron was. He was saved just in time,” Mr Borg said.

The attack happened the same morning that a couple were beaten up in another unprovoked incident, just a stone’s throw away from where Aaron was.

Mr Borg voiced his concern about the similarities of the two attacks, saying he had heard more stories over the last couple of days about gangs in Paceville turning on people for no apparent reason. “These thugs should be put in place before someone gets killed,” he said, suggesting the police on duty in the area were spread out rather than being concentrated in one area.

However, he had only words of praise for the police, the army and the medics who rescued his son. “Were it not for their swift action and dedication, my son would have drowned after being in those dark waters for three hours,” Mr Borg said.

More stories from The Times in the News section.