It’s a survival story that appears to be made for the movies. The Carnival cruise ship Valor reported on Thanksgiving day that a passenger had gone overboard. His sister reported him missing around 8 a.m. but hadn’t seen him since he left a bar to use the restroom around 11 p.m. the previous evening.
At that point, the U.S. Coast Guard got involved. The ship turned around and retraced its route hoping to find the unidentified man. Eventually, Valor continued on its way with no sign of the man.
The Coast Guard conducted an intensive search, alerting all vessels in the area to the emergency. The Coast Guard resources included a small boat from Venice, Fla., a helicopter based in New Orleans, and airplanes from Clearwater, Fla., and Mobile, Ala.
Then, around 8 p.m., a Thanksgiving miracle occurred.
About 20 miles south of Southwest Pass, Louisiana, the crew of bulk carrier CRINIS was scanning the water, the Coast Guard said Friday in a news release.
Then, around 8:25 p.m., they spotted something.
It was the man.
A Coast Guard MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter aircrew out of New Orleans headed to the spot — and “hoisted the man onto the helicopter,” VanderWeit said.
And he was responsive, USCG Petty Officer Ryan Graves said.“He was able to identify his name, confirmed that he was the individual that fell overboard,” Gross told CNN’s Boris Sanchez on Friday afternoon. “He was showing signs of hypothermia, shock, dehydration” but could walk and communicate.
He “gave no really no clear indication of why he fell overboard or what time specifically,” he added.
Just another day at the office for our Coast Guard.
Footage from the rescue of the cruise ship passenger last night. Can also be downloaded here: https://t.co/xk0pBnVr1E pic.twitter.com/GK1IXCKlgx
— USCG Heartland (@USCGHeartland) November 25, 2022
Lt. Seth Gross, a search and rescue coordinator for the USCG told CNN on Friday morning, “The fact that he was able to keep himself afloat and above the surface of the water for such an extended period of time, it’s just something you can’t take for granted and certainly something that’ll stick with me forever.”
Gross said that the passenger may have been in the water for as long as 15 hours. It’s “the absolute longest that I’ve heard about — and just one of those Thanksgiving miracles,” he said.
In his 17-year career, “this case is unlike anything I’ve been a part of,” Gross said. “I think it kind of blows the norm, the normalcy, out of the water here, and really just shows the will to live is something that you need to account for in every search-and-rescue case.”
“If not for the alert crew aboard the motor vessel CRINIS, this case could have had a much more difficult ending,” he said in the news release. “It took a total team effort from Coast Guard watchstanders, response crews, and our professional maritime partners operating in the Gulf of Mexico to locate the missing individual and get him to safety.”
The man is 28 years old and will have a long life ahead of him thanks to a sharp-eyed mariner and the skill of the U.S. Coast Guard.
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