Man clings to ‘sea rubbish’ to survive in Pacific Ocean for 14 hours.
The son of a sailor who fell overboard has told the story of his father’s amazing battle to stay alive earlier this month.
Vidam Perevertilov fell off the cargo ship into the Pacific Ocean in the early hours of 16th February. The ship, Silver Supporter, was making a supply run between New Zealand’s Tauranga port and the British Oversea Territory of Pitcairn. Mr Perevertilov, the chief engineer had finished a shift in the engine room pumping fuel. According to his son, Marat, he felt “hot and dizzy”. He went out on deck to recover at around 4am, before falling.
No memory
Marat, says his father cannot remember falling so believes he may have fainted. Unaware that there was a man overboard, the ship sailed away.
“His will to survive was strong… I probably would have drowned straight away, but he always kept himself fit and healthy and that’s why I think he could survive.”
Marat Perevertilov
As he was not wearing a life jacket, the situation was desire. Mr Perevertilov struggled to stay afloat. When the sun rose, he spotted a “black dot” on the horizon and swam towards it. This turned out to be a fishing buoy. “It was not anchored to anything or a boat, it was just a piece of sea rubbish.”
Locating and rescuing
Meanwhile, the ship’s crew noticed that their engineer was missing about six hours later. The captain turned the ship around.
According to reports, the crew looked at Mr Perevertilov’s work logs and worked out when he was last definitely onboard. This enabled Perevertilov’s approximate location to be determined. At 4am the ship’s position was roughly 400 nautical miles south of French Polynesia’s Austral Islands.
Distress messages were immediately radioed out to ships in the area. French navy aircraft joined the search from Tahiti. Furthermore, the French meteorological service studied the winds to calculate possible drift patterns.
Amazingly it was his own ship that rescued him. Seeing his ship on the horizon, Perevertilov waved and called out. Incredibly, someone on the ship heard a “weak, human shout”. Later on, a lookout spotted a raised hand. Eventually the ship’s Chief Engineer was pulled to safety on board. Altogether he was in the water for 14 hours before he was rescued. Perevertilov credits the piece of “sea rubbish” with saving his life.
The experience naturally took its toll. Marat said his father “looked about 20 years older” He was “very tired but he was alive.”
“His will to survive was strong… I probably would have drowned straight away, but he always kept himself fit and healthy and that’s why I think he could survive.”
Source: stuff.co.nz
