A sailor who fell in the South Pacific ocean was saved, all thanks to a pile of sea rubbish that he found. The 52-year-old sailor named Vidam Perevertilov was on Silver Supporter, a cargo ship, when he fell into the water. Vidam was feeling ‘hot and dizzy’ after completing his shift at the ship which was travelling between New Zealand’s Tauranga port and Pitcairn Island.
The sailor cannot recall how he fell and it is believed that he may have fainted first and then fallen into the water. But Vidam was saved by grasping at straws, in his case, grasping at sea rubbish, that actually turned out to be a fishing buoy for about 14 hours before help arrived.
On February 16 at around 4 am in the morning, Vidam fell into the water. He was abandoned alone in the ocean as his ship Silver Supporter sailed ahead, not knowing that Vidam was not on board. The sailor was struggling to stay afloat in the dark but as the sunlight beamed, he was able to see a black dot in the horizon. Speaking about Vidam’s courage, his son Marat said that the former told him that he started swimming towards the black dot which was a few kilometres away. Upon reaching to it, Vidam realised it was a discarded fishing buoy and he clung on to it for the next 14 hours, reported Stuff.
The crew of the ship finally discovered that a member was missing around 8 am. From the log book, it was established that Vidam was there till around 4 am because he had signed on it. The coordinates of the ship at around the same time were determined and sent to the air-sea coordination centre, JRCC Tahiti.
As the search operation was going on, a passenger at Silver Supporter told the crew that he had heard “a man shout at the starboard side of the ship.” When the sailor was finally located, he was given a lifebuoy and a crewperson lifted him back on the vessel.
Perevetilov’s son Marat reportedly told a publication that rather than bringing the buoy with him as a souvenir, his father left it in the ocean, hoping that it it could save another person’s life.