Before a rescue team could extricate a 64-year-old sailor from his capsized boat, he had to endure 16 hours at sea. Frenchman Laurent Camprubi, whose sailboat capsized, was saved by Spain’s Salvamento Martimo, according to the rescue’s Facebook post.
According to BBC News, he had departed in his 39-foot boat from Lisbon, Portugal, and had issued a distress call on Monday night.
The Sisargas Islands in Spain are located 14 nautical miles away from him in the Atlantic Ocean, and when the rescue crew got there, they discovered the boat had capsized.
The man was still alive because they could hear hammering coming from inside the boat. But the sea was too choppy. So, Camprubi had to wait until morning to leave the boat.
His survival “verged on the impossible,” according to the rescue divers. The team affixed buoyancy balloons to the boat after the sun had set to keep it from sinking, and they returned the following morning.
Then, while submerged to his knees in water, two divers discovered Camprubi under the boat. Along with them, he swam out from under the boat.
Camprubi entered the icy water on “his own initiative,” according to Vicente Cobelo of the coastguard’s special operations squad, who spoke to BBC News. The team then took him via helicopter to a hospital for examinations.
On Twitter, they posted a video of the terrifying rescue.
The French crewman who was rescued in Malpica was one such life that was saved by automatic distress signals on radios, according to Salvamento Martimo, who stated this event demonstrates their relevance.
“These are buoy-shaped devices that, in case of sinking, are automatically released to then emit a relief alert via satellite to rescue centers,” they wrote.
According to BBC, Camprubi’s yacht broadcast a distress signal at 8:23 on Monday. Salvamento Martimo received the alert right away and started a wide-area operation, according to their post.
Similar tales of survival and search-and-rescue operations have already made headlines. After falling from his boat in 2013, John Aldridge spent 12 hours in the Atlantic. Off the coast of Long Island, New York, the Coast Guard located and saved him.
In Santa Barbara, California, earlier this year, a fisherman was tossed overboard and had to swim for five hours to survive. He ultimately arrived at an oil rig, where he was restrained.