A woman who went overboard from a Royal Caribbean cruise ship off the coast of Zakynthos, Greece, was found alive on Saturday nearly 24 hours later, the Greek Coast Guard said.
Footage posted to social media shows rescue personnel throwing a rope to the 44-year-old woman from El Salvador, who was found floating on a bright orange life buoy off the coast of a Greek island in the Ionian Sea.
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A spokesperson for the Hellenic Coast Guard — Greece’s national coast guard agency — told AFP that the woman “was 20 hours at sea” and later told her rescuers that had jumped from the ship because “she wanted to disembark.”
The coast guard also noted that the woman went overboard roughly 80 miles from the shore, and that she was “a passenger of a cruise ship flying the Bahamas flag.” The ship was reportedly the Royal Caribbean’s Odyssey of the Seas.
Authorities were alerted of the woman going overboard in the morning hours of Friday, and immediately activated and search teams to rescue her, the Hellenic Coast Guard said.
The search involved a rescue ship, patrol boat, a Hellenic Air Force helicopter, and other vessels in the area.
The woman ended up being picked up by a submarine, where she was provided with first aid, the coast guard said.
After that, the submarine sailed to a port off the Greek village of Katakolo, and the woman was transported by ambulance to the General Hospital of Pyrgos, where medical staff conducted monitoring and examinations.
Alana Mastrangelo-Wrask is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.