Woman Rescued from Sea after Falling from Passenger Ship - Live Footage!
Channel: Mothership Adrift Travel and Sailing
Date: 2018-05-13

We thought it was worth doing a standalone blog just on this because it was quite serious and there was a lot to learn from it.  

We are involved in a genuine rescue at sea while on a Greek ferry between Athen and Aegina. About half way along our journey we realized that there was a person in the water. The first thing we did was point and someone alerted the captain.

As we got closer we realized that it was a woman. It was a major shipping channel so we presumed she'd come off a large ship. She was able to swim over to a lifeline thrown to her, as the crew lowered a rope ladder.. but it didn't reach the water. One of the crew members climbed down and tried to help her, but she just didn't have the energy or strength to get on the lopwer rung as it was too high.
 
Worse still, the boat was lifting up and down on the swell and she was getting sucked under the hull. A high-speed boat arrived to provide assistance but this too had high sides and the swell made it impossible to approach her.  Eventually they lowered a ramp at the back of the ferry and a crew member jumped in and pulled her around to it.

Other crew members managed to pull her onto the ramp but it was difficult as the ferry was still going up and down with a swell and it took them all their strength to pull her onto it. 

I didn't know if anyone was able to do first aid so I remained close by just in case they needed any assistance. Thankfully, she was conscious, breathing and able to talk so they put her into a recovery position, but I was still concerned her condition might deteriorate after the rescue as it sometimes does. 

The woman was finally transferred to the red high-speed power boat that had been standing by. I think their plan was to transfer her to the Coast Guard boat but they probably decided it was unsafe because of the swell. 

Once the woman was transferred we continued on our journey. 

So we don't actually know what happened to the woman afterwards but we obviously hope she was okay, We couldn't find any information and there was nothing in the English language media. 

It was quite troubling to see someone like that in water but we learned a lot from the experience, particularly how difficult it is to get someone back onto a boat. The ferry was a very large boat but it would be difficult on any boat really. 

I've learned a lot from years of training with the RNLI, RYA and our own drills on the boat but to actually to see how long the woman was in the water before they managed to get her back on board and also to see how someone had to put their own life at risk, was quite worrying really. 

This has also made us reevaluate the equipment that we have or don't have on our boat for recovering an MOBs - what kind of hoist we need, where on the boat we could bring someone up and even if they were conscious they might not even have the energy to climb up a ladder. 
So we're sorry if this blog was a little bit serious but we wanted to share it hoping that it would be a valuable learning experience for everyone.

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