A British woman who fell overboard from a cruise ship says she spent ten hours treading water before rescuers pulled her from the Adriatic Sea Sunday morning.
Kay Longstaff, a 46-year-old air hostess, told local media that she fell from the back of cruise ship Norwegian Star as it traveled from Vargarola, Croatia to Venice, Italy, ABC News reports.
Using on-board cameras to find the time of her fall — around 11:30 p.m. local time — the Croatian Coast Guard was able to pinpoint the area where she was most likely to be, some 60 miles off shore. Longstaff told a rescue worker that doing yoga had made her strong enough to survive the long stretch at sea and that singing had kept her warm, The Sun reports. She was wearing shorts and a t-shirt at the time of her fall.
“I was in the water for 10 hours, so these wonderful guys rescued me,” Longstaff told a Croatian TV station as she stepped off the Coast Guard vessel. She added that she was “lucky to be alive.” She was taken to a hospital in the nearby city of Pula for a health check.
It’s not clear what led to Longstaff’s plunge off the ship.
A spokeswoman for Norwegian Cruise Lines, which operates the Norwegian Star, confirmed that a passenger had been rescued following a search and rescue operation and was currently in a stable condition. “We are very happy that the individual, who is a U.K. resident, is now safe and will soon be reunited with friends and family,” she said.
The Croatian Coast Guard declined to comment.
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