A sailor fled for 14 hours in the Pacific Ocean by clinging to a fishing buoy after falling into the sea

A sailor on a cargo ship feels the heat and dizzy South Pacific I went out onto the deck to get some air.

You will, son later He told local mediaSpend at least the next 14 hours battling the waves hard and clinging to the elders fishing Buoy to stay alive.

Lithuanian 52-year-old engineer Vidam Perevertilov did a routine night shift in the engine roomSilver necklaceEarlier this month, he was sailing between New Zealand’s port of Tauranga and the Pitcairn Islands, a small British overseas region.

But on February 16, at around 4 a.m., he fell into the sea, apparently after his death.

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As he climbed in the dark and without a life jacket, his hopes were dashed with the sunrise.

“He could see a black spot on the horizon a few miles away,” his son Marat told New Zealand. Stuff News Page. So he swam towards her.

“It turned out to be an old fishing buoy … it wasn’t connected to anything or a boat, it was just a piece of marine litter,” Marat said.

“His will to stay was strong,” he added.

NBC News was unable to reach Marat or his father for immediate comment.

The engineer’s son said that as soon as the crew noticed his father was missing, they restored their movements and sent distress messages to nearby ships, including the French Polynesian ship. JRCC Tahiti.

“What happened next is almost impossible to explain,” Marat told the New Zealand news site.

“The silver craft was performing search patterns and a passenger said he heard a faint human scream on the right side of the ship,” about 400 nautical miles south of the Australian islands in French Polynesia.

According to Marat, the crew, who looked thirsty and tired and was more than twenty years old, threw a life buoy, lowered a ladder and pulled it on its back – half a day after departure.

His son describes the rescue as “unbelievable” and attributes his father’s survival to fitness and health.

statement High Commission of the French Republic in French Polynesia He emphasized that the Tahiti Center at the Paradise Center for Reconstruction and Development in Jordan had responded to calls for research support.

It said it had informed a French Navy aircraft in nearby Tahiti as well as its meteorological agency Meteo France that had begun to calculate the potential drift of seas based on winds.

“A happy ending for the man and the entire crew of the Silver Supporter, who satisfied everyone who participated in the investigation,” the statement said.

Doctor. Chris Ware, professor of marine history and director of the Greenwich Maritime Center in London, said the accident showed “how dangerous life and work at sea is in the 21st century” and the benefits of modern marine technology.

He added that “the fact that the buoy that was moving as marine pollution on any other day has become a lifesaver in this case.”

British High Commissioner to New Zealand and Governor of the Pitcairn Islands, Laura Clark tweeted The rescue was an “extraordinary story of survival,” adding that it would impress Captain Bligh, the ship’s famous captain.HMS Bounty.

The ship suffered a mutiny in 1789, which was featured in the 1962 Hollywood film Marlon Brando.

the majority Residents of the Pitcairn Islands It has European and Polynesian roots and is descended from nine rebels aboard the British ship. Most residents move to Australia and New Zealand to study and work.

Because Coronavirus pandemic All tourism to the remote sandy Pitcairn – the only inhabited island in the group – has come to a halt, about two miles long and one mile wide.

While Silver necklace According to a tourism website owned by the Pitcairn Islands government, which leases the vessel, the island has been allowed to supply and its schedule has been drastically reduced “to protect the population of about 50.”