If you fall overboard in the middle of the night, in the middle of the ocean, and nobody knows you’re missing, what are you chances of surviving? Not good. But that’s what happened to Brett Archibald, a South African businessman, and he lived to tell the tale (and write a book), but only after he was nudged by a shark, dive-bombed by gulls, almost nibbled to death by tiny blood-thirsty fish and starting to lose his mind before he was rescued after 28 hours in the Indian Ocean.
Archibald, then 50, was starting a surfing and vacation cruise with nine friends off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, three years ago. Before they left, they picked up some pizzas for dinner. On the boat, Archibald woke up at 1:30 in the morning with serious food poisoning, and went out to the top deck to get some fresh air. (The picture above shows where he fell overboard.) He remembers vomiting over the side – and then he woke up in the water, watching the boat disappear in the night.
Archibald screamed at the rapidly disappearing boat, even though he knew no one could hear him. Indeed, his friends didn’t realize he was missing until breakfast at 7:30 the next morning, when they called the Indonesian Coast Guard.
Meanwhile, Archibald, a strong swimmer, tried to stay afloat – and sane. At one point, a shark nudged him, before moving on. Two gulls attacked him; he thinks they were trying to pluck out his eyes. The skin on his legs rubbed raw where his shorts hit his legs while he was swimming, and tiny fish started eating the bloody flesh.
Archibald, who’s now written a book, Alone, about his ordeal, says his mental state deteriorated; he was “absolutely crazy,” and tried to keep his life together by thinking about his wife and two children, then nine and six, by counting to 1,000, and finally by singing Beatles and Bee Gees songs. After 12 hours, he started to hallucinate, seeing the Virgin Mary in a cloud.
When a boat for Sydney found him at 6:30 am a day after he fell overboard, Archibald had lost 13 pounds. His feet, hands and lips were bloodless. But he had survived. Read more:
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/12/alone-lost-overboard-brett-archibald/
