Sailor rescued after 16 hours in icy water - air bubble kept him alive
Created: 08/05/2022 15:39
By: Kai Hartwig
A man in distress fights for his life off the Spanish coast.
An air pocket helps him hold out until rescuers arrive.
Munich/Sisargas Islands – A sailor was rescued from certain death at the very last second off the north-west coast of Spain.
A 62-year-old Frenchman got into distress with his sailing boat off the Sisargas Islands and finally capsized.
Only after many anxious hours did the coast guard rescue the man.
Spain: Sailor rescued after 16 hours in icy water - air bubble kept him alive
The French hobby sailor was very fortunate in his misfortune.
He had to endure around 16 hours in the ice-cold water before the Spanish rescue workers reached him and brought him to safety.
The sailor also owed his survival to an air bubble.
These allowed him to breathe under the inverted torso and not drown.
However, the size of the life-saving air bubble continued to decrease by the hour.
The rescued told the newspaper
La Voz de Galicia
that the blister was initially about 70 centimeters in size on Monday evening (August 1).
The morning after, the air bubble was only around "30 to 40 centimeters" in size.
The fact that he also survived the icy water temperatures unscathed was due to the neoprene suit that the Frenchman wore when he was rescued.
Rescuers from the Spanish Coast Guard approach the Frenchman's capsized sailboat.
© Salvamento Maritimo/dpa
Sailing boat capsizes off the Spanish coast - rescue operation "on the verge of the impossible" succeeds
According to the Spanish Coast Guard, the rescue operation was extremely difficult. The weather and the darkness made the operation a challenge.
The rescue in stormy seas was "on the edge of the impossible," the Coast Guard said.
The twelve-meter-long sailing boat, with which the father of five children had taken part in a regatta between the Caribbean and France, suffered a lot in the accident on the high seas.
"When I look today at how destroyed the boat is, I don't know how I survived," said the capsized Frenchman after his rescue in an interview with
La Voz de Galicia
.
