A 64-year-old sailor was able to be rescued after surviving 16 hours at sea in a capsized boat. Frenchman Laurent Campurbi was rescued by Spanish Coast Guard Salvamento Maritimo after his sailing vessel capsized, rescuers told on his Facebook.
He set sail in his 39-foot boat from Lisbon, Portugal, and sent a distress call on Monday night,BBC News reports. He was in the Atlantic about 14 nautical miles from the Sisargas Islands in Spain and found the ship overturned when a rescue party arrived.
I knew he was alive because I heard a banging sound coming from inside the ship. But the sea was too rough. So Kamplebi had to wait until morning to leave the ship.
AL OTRO LADO DEL RESCATE Una foto vale más que mil palabras, aunque en este caso, hacen falta esas mil palabras.Ala...
Posted by Salvamento Marítimo on
on Wednesday, August 3, 2022 said it was "nearly impossible." As the sun went down, the team attached buoyancy balloons to the boat to keep it from sinking and returned the next morning.
Two divers swam under the boat and found Kamprubi knee-deep in water. He swam out from under the boat with them.
``Cada vida salvada es nuestra mayor recompensa''
Así fue el rescate realizado ayer por Salvamento Marítimo al tripulante del velero francés JEANNE SOLO SAILOR que estaba quilla al sol a 14 millas NNW de Islas Sisargas. pic.twitter.com/gqobWTSoWc
— SALVAMENTO MARÍTIMO (@salvamentogov) August 3, 2022
Vicente Kobero, a member of the Water Coast Guard's special operations team, told BBC News that Campurbi entered the sea "on his own initiative". He was then airlifted by a team and taken to a hospital for checks.
They shared a video of the tragic rescue on his Twitter.
Salvamento Marítimo said the story illustrates the importance of having a radio that automatically sends a distress call.
"These are buoy-shaped devices that automatically release in the event of a sinking and send a rescue alert to a rescue center via satellite," they wrote.
Campurubi's boat sent out a distress signal at 8:23 PM. On Monday, the BBC said. Salvamento Marítimo immediately received the signal and launched a widespread operation, they said in the post.
Similar stories of survival and rescue missions have made headlines before. In 2013, John Aldridge spent 12 hours in the Atlantic after he fell off a boat. He was rescued by the Coast Guard off Long Island, New York.
Earlier this year, a fisherman from Santa Barbara, California survived by swimming five hours after being thrown overboard. He ended up on an oil platform, where he was reused.
Caitlin O'Kane is a digital content producer behind trending stories for CBS News and its news brand The Uplift.
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