“The only thing he said to me was: ‘Thank you. I thought I was going to die,'” fisherman Sean Norton told CBS News.
The 37-year-old pianist had spent roughly nine hours in the Pacific Ocean nearly 30 kilometers off the California coast before two fishermen pulled him from the water, NOS reported. Once he had recovered, he told them he worked aboard the Ovation of the Seas, a Royal Caribbean ship with fourteen decks sailing from Long Beach to Ensenada, Mexico. He had been treading water in the open ocean.
Norton and fellow Newport Beach fisherman Grant Garrett spotted the man Friday while returning from a fishing trip near Catalina Island. The pair had spent the morning fishing for marlin when the captain of their boat saw something in the water. Both fishermen are from Newport Beach, California. “I thought: yes, that’s a person. Stop the boat, reel in all our lines,” Garrett told CBS News, according to Nieuwsblad.
The U.S. Coast Guard brought him to a hospital, where he is expected to survive. He was pulled from the water around noon after the fishermen made an emergency call that brought Newport Beach coast guards to the scene. His name has not been released. Together, Norton and Garrett hauled him aboard.
Norton credited the unusually warm sea for keeping the man alive. “It is an insane super-El Niño year,” he said. “That man probably lay in the water for ten hours, but the water is 76 degrees,” Norton said. The water measured about 24 degrees Celsius — 76 degrees Fahrenheit. “In another year he would never have made it,” he said.
Nieuwsblad, citing Coast Guard battalion chief Adam Yacenda, said the man was found 24 to 32 kilometers offshore, “pretty much in the middle of the ocean,” while Norton estimated he had been in the water for about ten hours.
How the man went overboard during the night remains unclear, NOS reported, and the U.S. Coast Guard is investigating the incident.
Royal Caribbean confirmed the event to CBS News. “We are offering our crew member support and assistance during this difficult time,” a spokesperson said. “Out of respect for our employee’s privacy, we are not sharing further details.”
Related reading