Finally, a man overboard situation with a happy ending.

A newspaper in Sweden, the Local, reports the good news that a 36-year-old passenger survived seven hours in the Baltic Sea on Friday night after falling from a ferry bound to Stockholm. The newspaper’s account was based on a report in a Swedish daily newspaper, the Ålandstidning Daily.

The passenger fell from the Baltic Queen ferry near the Finnish island of Åland, but the ferry did not notice that he was missing until the vessel docked in Stockholm on Saturday morning. There was Baltic Queen Passenger Overboardno explanation or speculation how the man went into the water.

The newspaper reports that the water temperature in the Baltic Sea was 60 – 64 F and there was initially little hope that the man had survived. However, Finnish sea rescue located the man two hours later, four kilometers from the closest island.

The passenger was found suffering from hypothermia with a body temperature of only 79 F. According to medical expertise he should have been unconscious by then and would have been in cardiac arrest had his body temperature dropped a further degree.

The man had no life jacket and had few clothes as he had shed them in a bid to remain afloat in the bracing waters.

The man is reported to be 36-years-old and originates from Estonia.

I’m sure he’s saying his prayers tonight.

 

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons / Pjotr Mahhonin