A woman who pulled three men ashore after they got into trouble while swimming in the ocean in Victoria is being lauded as a hero.
One of the men died and another is fighting for his life after the incident at a beach along the Great Ocean Road on Sunday afternoon.
Brianna Hurst retrieved the men one by one from the ocean at Marengo near Apollo Bay, while others on the beach performed CPR.
"I could see one of them but not all three ... but I knew three of them were in there," Ms Hurst told reporters at Apollo Bay Surf Life Saving Club on Monday.
A fourth man in the group had come ashore to get help after they ran into trouble.
"As soon as I realised what the situation was, I jumped in," Ms Hurst said.
"I kind of just jumped into action without really thinking about what I was doing."
One man was declared dead at the scene and the other two were flown to hospital.
One of the survivors aged in his 20s remains in a critical condition in Melbourne's Alfred hospital, while the other is in a stable condition at Barwon Health in Geelong.
Victoria Police senior sergeant Stephen Bull called Ms Hurst's actions "heroic".
"She's put herself in danger to rescue three people that she didn't know at great risk to herself, so there's no other word that I can use other than heroic," Sen Sgt Bull told reporters.
In a horror weekend on Australian beaches, a man drowned at Cooee Beach in Tasmania's northwest on Sunday after he and several children were caught in strong currents.
The man died at the scene, while the children were taken to the North West Regional Hospital for observation.
In late January, four people drowned on an unpatrolled beach on Phillip Island after getting swept up by strong currents in the shallows.
Royal Life Saving Australia recorded 99 drowning deaths across the nation between December 1 and February 29 this year.
