A 46-year-old British woman sang songs and kept herself awake for ten hours after she fell off a cruise liner in the Adriatic Sea before she was rescued by the Croatian Coast Guard. The woman, Kay Longstaff, who lives in Spain, said she fell off the back of the Norwegian Star, a 965-foot-long cruise liner that holds 2,348 passengers. She did not give any other details, but she told CNN, “I’m very lucky to be alive.”
The Croatian Coast Guard says she fell off the ship at 11:45 p.m. The ship’s captain alerted the Coast Guard of the situation and it initiated a search-and-rescue operation involving ships and a PC-9 patrol plane. Other commercial and recreational boats in the area also joined the search.
A Croatian Coast Guard boat spotted her at 9:40 the next morning, less than a mile from where she had fallen overboard, and brought her on board (see top picture). Authorities used calculations of wind speed and currents to determine the direction she may have traveled.
Ms Longstaff said she floated, treaded water and sang out loud to keep herself awake during the night. She didn’t want to fall asleep and let her body temperature drop. She’s in good shape because she practices yoga regularly. August is the warmest month in the Adriatic; average water temperature is almost 77 degrees.
The cruise company said it would review closed-circuit videos to try to determine how she fell overboard. Read more:
https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/19/europe/cruise-ship-woman-rescued/index.html
