A Lebanese sailor was rescued off the coast of Cyprus after a harrowing five-hour ordeal in the sea. The sailor had fallen off a cargo ship and was left struggling to stay afloat before a dramatic rescue brought him back to safety.
The incident took place early in the morning when the sailor, a Lebanese national, fell into the water under unknown circumstances. After realizing he was missing, the crew alerted Cypriot authorities, triggering an immediate search and rescue operation.
Initially, a helicopter from the Cypriot Joint Rescue Coordination Center (JRCC) was dispatched 185km southeast of Cyprus to locate the sailor. Using heat censors, it combed around 25 square kilometers for about an hour.
After locating him, the helicopter couldn’t perform the rescue due to the need to refuel. However, they quickly relayed the coordinates to a nearby vessel, guiding it to the sailor’s exact location.
As the ship searched the area in the dead of night, the crew heard the sailor crying out for help and pulled him into safety. He was taken to a local hospital in Cyprus for a medical check-up and is reported to be in stable condition.
The sailor’s identity has not been released, and investigations are ongoing to determine how he fell overboard.
Cmdr. Andreas Charalambides, head of the Cyprus Search and Rescue Coordination Center, said an investigation into how the man ended up in the water is the responsibility of the nation under which the ship sails. In this case, the NIVIN vessel is Panamanian-flagged.
