The 30 desperate Norwegian youths, who fled into the water to escape from gunfire, were lucky to meet with an unassuming hero who plucked them from the water and to safety.
But the 32-year-old German roofer's actions of sailing towards Utoya island on Friday afternoon - even as gunman Anders Behring Breivik was on his shooting spree - to try and rescue the youths who were trying to escape from him, has been hailed as nothing short of heroic.
Mr Gleffe and his parents had been drinking coffee at the Utvika camping ground - just 600 metres opposite Utoya island where a summer camp for youth members of Norway's ruling Labour Party was being held - when they heard a series of bangs.
They looked up and saw smoke coming from the island.
When they rushed down to the camp ground's jetty, hoping to find out what happened, they saw another camper pulling a teenager out of the water as a girl swimming behind her screamed "help", "shooting" and told them to call the police, Mr Gleffe told German magazine Der Spiegel.
Mr Gleffe, his parents and other campers snapped into action, jumping into their small boats and paddling towards the island in an attempt to save as many people in the water as possible.
"I immediately suspected that there was a connection to the attack in Oslo. I know the difference between fireworks and gunfire. I knew what it was about," Mr Gleffe, who was described in media reports as having a military background, told Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet.
"In such a situation, you don't think at all," he told Der Spiegel.
"There were people swimming everywhere in the water. I threw them lifejackets and pulled those into the boat who were having the most trouble. Everyone was screaming, but they were also helping each other."
Mr Gleffe brought his boat as close to the shore of Utoya island as he could and kept an eye out for Mr Breivik - whom he had earlier spotted through his binoculars.
He was initially puzzled as to why some of the youths were frightened of him when he tried to rescue them, with some screaming "don't come too close" or "do you want to kill us", but later found out that Mr Breivik, while dressed in a policeman's uniform, had called the youths to come to him before he fired on them.
Mr Gleffe made around four or five boat trips and managed to pull up to 30 people out from the water. Together with other campers, they rescued a total of 150 people from the island.
He brushed aside praise, telling Der Spiegel: "What we did simply goes without saying."
Sixty-eight people out of the around 600 people on Utoya island were killed in the attacks.
Mr Breivik appeared in a Norwegian court overnight, pleading not guilty to both the Oslo bomb blast and the island shootings.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/roofer-hailed-a-hero-after-norway-island-rescue-20110726-1hxq5.html#ixzz1TAYDEK23
