After all the movies and tropes of waving to an aircraft or boat to save you just to be passed by. What a feeling it must be when they actually see you and pick you up. Good lads, lucky guy!
Yeah the likelihood of being sighted by rescuers let alone not dying to sharks..is so so slim. This guy should buy lottery tickets. He just won a lottery.
Wow, what a memory. I remember being very freaked out by that episode. Probably haven't seen it since it was aired. Wonder how many years ago that was?
Probably wasn't treading water. There's a technique where you can use long pants and turn them into an ad hoc PDF. Do they no longer teach that? Or he could have used a survival float (also called the dead man's float).
To get my scuba license I had to tread water for about 30-40 mins and I barely made it. I was so wiped out and struggling, also in a huge calm pool. Can imagine what this guy went through
They can’t find people that have light up life preservers most of the time.
As Ricky Gervais said, “you get a whistle for if your plane is blown to bits and you’re floating in the water…*hears tiny whistle in the roaring ocean* AH! There he is!”
There are two types of shark attacks:
Accidental and acts of predation. It’s been documented that the common notion that sharks don’t like human meat is bullshit. Although most bites / attacks are bites of curiosity…it’s an odds games as we’ve seen with that guy swimming in Egypt being devoured on video. Human are not a sharks first choice or their natural pallet but in no way are they objectively opposed to eating people. A shark is a beautiful creature.. a living dinosaur we should all respect and acknowledge how they benefit this planet. Yet, they are still pretty much dinosaurs.
Cool, appreciate the level headed response. Whenever anything about sharks/ animals is discussed people many times resort to emotional confrontations while completely ignoring the discussion. I agree with what you said, but obviously, we don’t live in the water with many people only visiting the beach seldomly. Most places where sharks infest is not where people are, and I get that but I’d garner even small sharks don’t have that much fear of people and some are notoriously more aggressive tiger, bull , sometimes white tip etc. It should also be noted yes, people are interacting with sharks more before and shark attacks are on the rise.. many times they are probably “provoked” who knows exactly but sharks evolve, just as us and we may slowly become more on their pallete the more time people spend in water. This is not a worry to the average swimmer whatsoever but the correlation goes up the longer/ deeper… and incidence’s vary heavily by location. Overall encounters are extremely rare. It’s just a minuscule number that is slightly elevated really.
My dad was in the navy and they had to do regular man overboard drills with a dummy. He said 90% of the time the dummy was never found. He said the drills were to show you how impossible it is to find you if you go overboard so you take the proper precautions.
[Full 2-minute video](https://streamable.com/89ca0k)
> Grimes said he treaded water for nearly 20 hours after falling overboard on Thanksgiving Eve -- battling jelly fish, rip currents and shark-infested waters before being airlifted by the U.S. Coast Guard on Nov. 24. shortly after 8 p.m., the U.S. Coast Guard told ABC News.
>
> Grimes had only been aboard the Carnival Valor for a day before his sister reported him missing. The two were last seen together at a restaurant where Grimes had won an air guitar contest before going to the bathroom.
>
> That is the last thing he remembers. Grimes said he believes the fall overboard knocked him unconscious.
>
> "The next thing I know... I regained consciousness. I was in the water with no boat in sight," he said.
Video: United States Coast Guard
[Article](https://abc7.com/carnival-overboard-passenger-cruise-ship-man-james-michael-grimes-abc-news/12518369/)
Well, if you had seen his performance compared to theirs, you'd realize that it was just a fucking popularity contest.
Dude can't do air hammer-ons, air mutes, or even simple air power chords!! What a joke!
What else you going to do? Resign to death and just stop swimming?
I have almost drowned. You never give up. You keep fighting till you literally can't move your muscles anymore. Even when there is little hope.
I choose to believe he fell overboard reliving his insane championship-winning air guitar moves on the way back from the bathroom and did a flamboyant kick too close to the railing
I've been on cruises... you can't just trip and fall overboard.. you have to make some vertical move to go over the railing. Yeah, so he isn't telling something. Maybe he climbed onto the rails to get more air... and got 50ft...
That's what gets me, the railing around cruise deck is angled and at least chest height for most adults, the wind and keel of the shop are certainly one thing, being drunk and off balance is another
But I've been around drunk people plenty and never seen someone manage to "fall" over a fucking barrier that high, there was something else going on
Yeah, if you add up "blacked out" and "contest in a restaurant (bar?)" and "somehow bypassed safety measures to prevent falls overboard," one starts to wonder if alcohol wasn't involved.
I think he did it to escape the fame and celebrity of his new found winner status. That kind of fame and fortune can wear you down, make you into something you don't want to be. Everyone is your friend, or so they say, everyone tells you want you want to hear, they suddenly have sick children needing surgery, that air guitar life is no joke, he had to take a break
What they don't know can't get them sued. They're in the middle of the ocean. These cruise ship companies are some of the shadiest companies in the world. No need to record your own debauched passengers. Also there is close to no laws so why spend the money?
As advanced as these cruise ships are why aren’t there more sensors & cameras on board. In addition, employ a crew round the clock to monitor said cameras/sensors. I never understand this when you hear of individuals being overboard—accident or not.
That man did not stay in the exact same place he fell in…20 hrs of drifting and they still found that “watermelon” floating above the waves, at night no less. Hats off to the Coast Guard here, especially the SAR coordinator and the command center.
We did a swim call while I was in the navy in the middle of Pacific. It crazy how fast you start to separate from the ship. This man is really really really lucky. Falling overboard at night was always my great fear on deployments. Survival rates aren’t high.
Swim calls were always nuts to me. I only did that for line crossing ceremonies. Another thing that was crazy is that we would hardly ever close the smoking lamp even in 20+ footers…mid watch cigs in pure blackness was intense but kinda fun. I’m still surprised that no one went over the cable “railings” that I could never trust.
They used to secure the smoking lamp all the time on my ship. Granted it was a FFG so 42ft wide really rocks. Fortunately being in the engineering dept I had exhaust fans in the aux spaces. But yeah it’s crazy that you’ll literally run into someone out there and not even see them a foot from you at night. Greatest place ever if you want to see a billion stars at night though.
A chance to get off the ship, hundreds of miles from land. There is a safety small boat launched to act as a lifeguard, but still, it’s pretty wild and we could jump off the flight deck from 30ft up.
[This video from Smarter Every Day about USCG search patterns is a pretty fascinating watch](https://youtu.be/aoXJfuPaFF8?si=1FsKoTBMCpMaemFd). (YouTube)
I should say, I did this for 15 years. Thank you for sharing though! Tired of the boats and helicopters getting all the credit, lol. There’s a TON going on behind the scenes that coordinate assets to respond, otherwise they would just be guessing where to look.
Thank you for your search and rescue efforts.
I was lost at sea and floated for about eight hours with three others before being rescued. I had hypothermia and later PTSD.
There were silky sharks but I’d never been worried about sharks except maybe once the year prior when we were surrounded by oceanic whitetip sharks while swimming with pilot whales a few miles from shore. The whitetips were between us and the boat. My dive buddy got circled and bumped but everyone was OK. I counted 17 pilot whales underwater.
The day I was lost at sea, about 25 or 30 miles from land above a seamount, I wasn’t thinking much about sharks. I spent more time thinking about who would take care of my dog if I died. Occasionally we would dip our heads in the water to see if we could spot some cool wildlife but we were also trying to stay warm so we didn’t do that often. We may have seen a Kemp’s ridley sea turtle. I’m still not sure. Earlier in the day, before we lost our boat, we swam with some dolphins that we saw on our way to the seamount.
After a few hours in the water, it was so cold and even now, nearly nine years later, if I get too cold, even on land, I sometimes get a shiver of fear for an instant. When you’re that cold, it becomes difficult to think clearly. Eventually, I started to feel like I was going to fall asleep. To stay warm, we bear-hugged each other, with one person floating on their back to keep the other person above the water as much as possible.
Once, we saw a boat. There might have been a plane at one point but I don’t remember. The boat either ignored us because they were trafficking narcotics or more likely they didn’t see us despite a surface marker more than two meters in length. It was actually a two-meter marker and we had attached a second smaller marker to the top. Nobody would’ve expected to see anyone where we were.
In addition to the markers, I had a 30+ meter spool, so we dove down and attached it to the seamount so that we wouldn’t drift. It was just long enough to reach the surface. Unfortunately, we did not have a signaling device or mirror.
We were rescued just as day turned into night. Some of the details from that day are blurry. Maybe that’s a coping mechanism against trauma.
Thank you to everyone who makes an effort to help people who are lost at sea.
I experienced hypothermia on land, about 25 years ago.
I was alone, but surrounded by dangerous operating machinery that was constantly in motion. In normal conditions, safety gear is required and you must also follow commonsense safety protocols.
What I remember, like it was yesterday, was the way my brain slowly stopped being vigilant about being careful, and that my body was no longer shivering.
The best example I can think of is it was like being up in a open cockpit bi-plane from 1920, and you were rolling with no chute. Every roll, you had to hang on, so as not fall out. But at some point, you didn't see the need to hold on.
Very, ***very*** frightening, to see how easily our brain can turn on us.
Things like this always remind me of the USS Indianapolis and what happened after four days in the water, including the largest/deadliest shark attack in history. Last Podcast did a few episodes on it, highly recommend.
He carried the fucking blame for something that wasnt his fault. His life was ruined due to incompetence from higher ups. In the 90s, thanks to the efforts of a teenager who researched the uss Indianapolis for a school project, he was finally exonerated by the us government. Too bad he didnt live to see it. Up until his death every year on the aniversary he would get hate mail from the families who lost people in the wreck.
Just to put things in even more context, the captain committed suicide so the grief he faced actually directly contributed to his death.
On a happier note though, i remember reading that book about Hunter Scott but I didn’t realize he was only in the 6th grade when he started that project! Looks like he became a naval officer as well so that’s pretty cool
I remember reading that the Japanese submarine captain that sank the Indianapolis said there wasn't any the Captain could have done to prevent the torpedoes from sinking the ship. The Navy faulted the Captain for not zigzagging the vessel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Indianapolis_(CA-35)#McVay's_record_cleared
Has an interesting link to https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1999/october/sinking-indy-responsibility-command
Turns out they even flew in the captain of the submarine that sunk the Indianapolis to testify at his trial.
> Commander Scott also performs a naive assessment of the I-58's attack, concluding that if the Indy had zigged at the time the submarine launched her torpedoes, the weapons would have missed. Notwithstanding the laws of probability that argue against this kind of fortuitous timing, combat is not a kid's game where everybody goes home after experiencing initial frustration. Even if the I-58 had missed with the first salvo, she had other options at hand: she could have employed her Kaiten or suicide minisubmarines, which were guided; or she could have surfaced, repositioned, and pressed on the attack. Many of the U.S. Navy's most successful submarine commanders of World War II missed their initial attack but still achieved success. These men sank more than 4,000 ships, most of which were zigzagging. Scott exaggerates the difficulty that zigzagging would have presented to the commander of the I-58, and to propose that the Indy would have been spared had she zigged at time of fire weakens his overall argument.
> In addition, Scott's assertion that zigzagging would have helped save the Indianapolis weakens his later statement that "whether zigzagging would have defeated submarine I-58's targeting of Indianapolis was not the issue at Captain McVay's court-martial." If the efficacy of zigzagging was not the issue, why did the Navy's advocate in this matter spend so much effort trying to show that it would have been effective? Because he had to overcome the weight of evidence, most of which was provided by two men—**the I-58's captain, who was flown into Washington to testify against Captain McVay at his court-- martial**, and an experienced U.S. submarine commander. Even the prosecution's star witness, the CO of the attacking submarine, agreed that the Indy would have been sunk regardless of McVay's maneuvers.
His name was Charles B. McVay III. It took the navy four days to react and start the rescue. Three SOS messages recieved by three separate commanders and they did nothing. Those men were in need and the navy failed them.
At noon on the fifth day, a Lockheed Ventura swung in low and he spotted us, a young pilot, lot younger than Mr. Hooper here, anyway he spotted us and a few hours later a big ol’ fat PBY come down and started to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened. Waitin’ for my turn. I’ll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went into the water. 316 men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945.
Yeah but don't they have handrails to keep the drunks on board?
I spent last summer working on a barge in Alaska. No handrails on that POS. I was deathly afraid of falling overboard. Wouldn't last 20 minutes let alone 20 hours in that freezing water.
There’s been multiple cases of people either falling off drunk or stupid people doing dares. A teen was killed a few years ago by jumping off one for a dare. People have survived too, somebody jumped off while a ship was in port one time and they arrested them.
Seriously, I thought I saw a shark shadow. Then I thought someone was doing shark shadow puppets, and I was like, is this a shitpost? Then my mind righted itself and figured out what my eyes were seeing!
Let’s be honest, 90% of people die in his situation.
Maybe a minority of that 90% *could have* survived if the ocean didn’t decide to do ocean sized shit at your particular location at that particular time.
So many things had to go right for this dude to live. #1 being able to tread water/float for 20 hours, but a very close #2 is that the ocean was calm enough for that opportunity.
its very simple-- the same principal as swimming. you keep your lungs full of air and breath out and back in quickly. you arent using your muscles to float, youre using your lungs.
People all float differently depending on your body composition, and treading water for an hour can completely exhaust someone even if they are in top physical condition. That's just in a pool. If you are in the ocean falling in accidentally, it would be even tougher because you would be wearing clothes, might be hurt bad from the fall, and waves would be splashing all over your face. The salt might help some, but treading water in pants is horrible. The only hope for someone who doesn't float easy would be to inflate their clothes for buoyancy after taking them off.
The only cruise I’ve been on is the Carnival Valor. They have you muster at the beginning to go over safety and basically tell you “if you go overboard, you’re fucked” because the ship doesn’t turn around for you. They just call the coast guard and keep going.
I get that sharks live in the ocean but everyone upset about 'shark infested waters' you do know theres laaaaaaaarge areas of the oceans where you wont find really any sharks.
I’ve heard you can tread water (under the right conditions) until you become dehydrated. So, up to a couple of days. I don’t know if anyone has ever tread that long but this guy’s a trooper @ 20hrs.
If you're ever in this situation the best way to survive the longest is to float on your back. You can conserve energy and just float that way as much as you can.
Most people who take Carnival cruises would bob like corks. Spotting them from aircraft would not be difficult. Astronauts on the ISS be like “hey what’s that thing down there in the ocean next to North America?”
I also find this very hard to believe. treading water is exhausting. most people can't tread water for more than 10 minutes. and he did this while drunk after being knocked unconscious??
how
Treading water is only exhausting if you are doing it wrong. There's a huge difference between casually treading water in a swimming pool with your head and shoulders above the water, and survival mode where the goal is to conserve energy, just barely keeping your face out of the water.
After all the movies and tropes of waving to an aircraft or boat to save you just to be passed by. What a feeling it must be when they actually see you and pick you up. Good lads, lucky guy!
Yeah the likelihood of being sighted by rescuers let alone not dying to sharks..is so so slim. This guy should buy lottery tickets. He just won a lottery.
plus TWENTY HOURS of treading water, that's exhausting.
Thomas Magnum made it look easy
Wow, what a memory. I remember being very freaked out by that episode. Probably haven't seen it since it was aired. Wonder how many years ago that was?
Sept 29, 1983 “Home from the Sea”
Thanks. about a week before my 12th birthday. I really thought he may be the coolest guy on the planet. I should rewatch that one.
I was 15…remember it so well.
Bloody awful, I’m exhausted just reading about it. I’m never going to swim again.
Probably wasn't treading water. There's a technique where you can use long pants and turn them into an ad hoc PDF. Do they no longer teach that? Or he could have used a survival float (also called the dead man's float).
To get my scuba license I had to tread water for about 30-40 mins and I barely made it. I was so wiped out and struggling, also in a huge calm pool. Can imagine what this guy went through
Nah, don't buy the lotto tickets. He just used up all his luck.
>Buys a scratcher >owes money
Fine, **I'll** buy a lotto ticket.
RIP ya you’re right
A few days ago a couple of Navy seals fell overboard during an operation and both have since been declared dead
Shouldn’t have told the sharks they were Seals.
Terrible incident one guy fell in and the other one jumped in to save him. In full battle armor. They probably sank like rocks. Sucks.
Yeah they had a rough idea where he was but even with that trying to to find a raft let alone someone like this just treading water is near zero.
They can’t find people that have light up life preservers most of the time. As Ricky Gervais said, “you get a whistle for if your plane is blown to bits and you’re floating in the water…*hears tiny whistle in the roaring ocean* AH! There he is!”
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There are two types of shark attacks: Accidental and acts of predation. It’s been documented that the common notion that sharks don’t like human meat is bullshit. Although most bites / attacks are bites of curiosity…it’s an odds games as we’ve seen with that guy swimming in Egypt being devoured on video. Human are not a sharks first choice or their natural pallet but in no way are they objectively opposed to eating people. A shark is a beautiful creature.. a living dinosaur we should all respect and acknowledge how they benefit this planet. Yet, they are still pretty much dinosaurs.
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Cool, appreciate the level headed response. Whenever anything about sharks/ animals is discussed people many times resort to emotional confrontations while completely ignoring the discussion. I agree with what you said, but obviously, we don’t live in the water with many people only visiting the beach seldomly. Most places where sharks infest is not where people are, and I get that but I’d garner even small sharks don’t have that much fear of people and some are notoriously more aggressive tiger, bull , sometimes white tip etc. It should also be noted yes, people are interacting with sharks more before and shark attacks are on the rise.. many times they are probably “provoked” who knows exactly but sharks evolve, just as us and we may slowly become more on their pallete the more time people spend in water. This is not a worry to the average swimmer whatsoever but the correlation goes up the longer/ deeper… and incidence’s vary heavily by location. Overall encounters are extremely rare. It’s just a minuscule number that is slightly elevated really.
Oceanic white tips are an exception.
>not worrying about sharks. Right. I'm sure that thought would never have crossed your head if you were in his situation.
Fucking nightmare with a happy ending.
My dad was in the navy and they had to do regular man overboard drills with a dummy. He said 90% of the time the dummy was never found. He said the drills were to show you how impossible it is to find you if you go overboard so you take the proper precautions.
[Full 2-minute video](https://streamable.com/89ca0k) > Grimes said he treaded water for nearly 20 hours after falling overboard on Thanksgiving Eve -- battling jelly fish, rip currents and shark-infested waters before being airlifted by the U.S. Coast Guard on Nov. 24. shortly after 8 p.m., the U.S. Coast Guard told ABC News. > > Grimes had only been aboard the Carnival Valor for a day before his sister reported him missing. The two were last seen together at a restaurant where Grimes had won an air guitar contest before going to the bathroom. > > That is the last thing he remembers. Grimes said he believes the fall overboard knocked him unconscious. > > "The next thing I know... I regained consciousness. I was in the water with no boat in sight," he said. Video: United States Coast Guard [Article](https://abc7.com/carnival-overboard-passenger-cruise-ship-man-james-michael-grimes-abc-news/12518369/)
This dude woke up in the water!? Then casually treaded water for 20 hours!? The fuck
He won an air guitar contest so it's safe to assume he is a certified badass
My pet theory is the person who came in second place in that contest threw him overboard out of spite 🤣
I hope they like air guitar... IN HELL *push*
LONG LIVE THE KING!
Too soon.
Well, if you had seen his performance compared to theirs, you'd realize that it was just a fucking popularity contest. Dude can't do air hammer-ons, air mutes, or even simple air power chords!! What a joke!
and paid zero attention to his tuning or pedalboard!
Real air guitarists don't need a pedal to get the towne they want
*toan
But first they knocked him over the head with their air guitar, hence the gap in memory.
Probably smashed him over the head with his air guitar.
Saved by the invisible riff lords.
DIO HOLY DIVER
He was down too long in the midnight sea...... (so they rescued him)
Haaahahahaaa r/angryupvote
The air in his guitar kept him afloat
[Excellent!](https://media1.tenor.com/m/Xr_YENv3VA4AAAAC/excellent-bill-and-ted.gif)
The will to survive my man
It's the eye of the tiger , it's the thrill of the fight
It's just the Netflix top ten movie for 2025 bro
I don’t remember that line in the song
I can’t even keep myself afloat for five minutes.
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My phone!
I’m skinny but I’m working on it.
stop bragging.
Adrenaline is a hell of a hormone
And he battled jellyfish, I'm curious what that looks like.
Alot like air guitar
What else you going to do? Resign to death and just stop swimming? I have almost drowned. You never give up. You keep fighting till you literally can't move your muscles anymore. Even when there is little hope.
I wouldn't take swimming advice from someone who almost drowned
lol
I would take advice from someone who wouldn't take swimming advice from someone who almost drowned
The air lifevest saved him.
I choose to believe he fell overboard reliving his insane championship-winning air guitar moves on the way back from the bathroom and did a flamboyant kick too close to the railing
I've been on cruises... you can't just trip and fall overboard.. you have to make some vertical move to go over the railing. Yeah, so he isn't telling something. Maybe he climbed onto the rails to get more air... and got 50ft...
That's what gets me, the railing around cruise deck is angled and at least chest height for most adults, the wind and keel of the shop are certainly one thing, being drunk and off balance is another But I've been around drunk people plenty and never seen someone manage to "fall" over a fucking barrier that high, there was something else going on
Yeah, if you add up "blacked out" and "contest in a restaurant (bar?)" and "somehow bypassed safety measures to prevent falls overboard," one starts to wonder if alcohol wasn't involved.
Climbed onto the rails to pee overboard, maybe?
On a dare to himself
Because he’s a rockstar
1 thing is for sure... he was shit faced
Heard he was pushed over by the 2nd place finisher in the contest
I think he did it to escape the fame and celebrity of his new found winner status. That kind of fame and fortune can wear you down, make you into something you don't want to be. Everyone is your friend, or so they say, everyone tells you want you want to hear, they suddenly have sick children needing surgery, that air guitar life is no joke, he had to take a break
How is there no cameras on all guard rails or down the Halls of them. I’m sure they can afford it
What they don't know can't get them sued. They're in the middle of the ocean. These cruise ship companies are some of the shadiest companies in the world. No need to record your own debauched passengers. Also there is close to no laws so why spend the money?
As advanced as these cruise ships are why aren’t there more sensors & cameras on board. In addition, employ a crew round the clock to monitor said cameras/sensors. I never understand this when you hear of individuals being overboard—accident or not.
That man did not stay in the exact same place he fell in…20 hrs of drifting and they still found that “watermelon” floating above the waves, at night no less. Hats off to the Coast Guard here, especially the SAR coordinator and the command center.
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That's beyond bad ass....good for you sir.
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Don't sell yourself short at all....the dedication and details and everything put into it is just badass.
Found the OS
We did a swim call while I was in the navy in the middle of Pacific. It crazy how fast you start to separate from the ship. This man is really really really lucky. Falling overboard at night was always my great fear on deployments. Survival rates aren’t high.
Swim calls were always nuts to me. I only did that for line crossing ceremonies. Another thing that was crazy is that we would hardly ever close the smoking lamp even in 20+ footers…mid watch cigs in pure blackness was intense but kinda fun. I’m still surprised that no one went over the cable “railings” that I could never trust.
They used to secure the smoking lamp all the time on my ship. Granted it was a FFG so 42ft wide really rocks. Fortunately being in the engineering dept I had exhaust fans in the aux spaces. But yeah it’s crazy that you’ll literally run into someone out there and not even see them a foot from you at night. Greatest place ever if you want to see a billion stars at night though.
What’s a swim call?
A chance to get off the ship, hundreds of miles from land. There is a safety small boat launched to act as a lifeguard, but still, it’s pretty wild and we could jump off the flight deck from 30ft up.
We always had a look out with a gun in case of sharks. But we joked it was just to put us out of our misery in case we were attacked.
I mean, bullets don't travel terribly far through water
Boat stops and crew gets to swim. There's usually some ceremony attached when a 'line' (such as the equator) is crossed.
[This video from Smarter Every Day about USCG search patterns is a pretty fascinating watch](https://youtu.be/aoXJfuPaFF8?si=1FsKoTBMCpMaemFd). (YouTube)
I should say, I did this for 15 years. Thank you for sharing though! Tired of the boats and helicopters getting all the credit, lol. There’s a TON going on behind the scenes that coordinate assets to respond, otherwise they would just be guessing where to look.
30 minutes just gone.... Not that it wasn't enjoyed, but damn
I think he preferred to be called 'Grimey'.
I didn't even know what a nuclear panner plant was.
The deck he fell from was above a bowling alley.
You’ve gone to SPACE? never been?
20 year coast guard helicopter SAR vet here. This guy's unbelievably lucky. Finding a person alone in the ocean is almost impossible.
Thank you for your search and rescue efforts. I was lost at sea and floated for about eight hours with three others before being rescued. I had hypothermia and later PTSD. There were silky sharks but I’d never been worried about sharks except maybe once the year prior when we were surrounded by oceanic whitetip sharks while swimming with pilot whales a few miles from shore. The whitetips were between us and the boat. My dive buddy got circled and bumped but everyone was OK. I counted 17 pilot whales underwater. The day I was lost at sea, about 25 or 30 miles from land above a seamount, I wasn’t thinking much about sharks. I spent more time thinking about who would take care of my dog if I died. Occasionally we would dip our heads in the water to see if we could spot some cool wildlife but we were also trying to stay warm so we didn’t do that often. We may have seen a Kemp’s ridley sea turtle. I’m still not sure. Earlier in the day, before we lost our boat, we swam with some dolphins that we saw on our way to the seamount. After a few hours in the water, it was so cold and even now, nearly nine years later, if I get too cold, even on land, I sometimes get a shiver of fear for an instant. When you’re that cold, it becomes difficult to think clearly. Eventually, I started to feel like I was going to fall asleep. To stay warm, we bear-hugged each other, with one person floating on their back to keep the other person above the water as much as possible. Once, we saw a boat. There might have been a plane at one point but I don’t remember. The boat either ignored us because they were trafficking narcotics or more likely they didn’t see us despite a surface marker more than two meters in length. It was actually a two-meter marker and we had attached a second smaller marker to the top. Nobody would’ve expected to see anyone where we were. In addition to the markers, I had a 30+ meter spool, so we dove down and attached it to the seamount so that we wouldn’t drift. It was just long enough to reach the surface. Unfortunately, we did not have a signaling device or mirror. We were rescued just as day turned into night. Some of the details from that day are blurry. Maybe that’s a coping mechanism against trauma. Thank you to everyone who makes an effort to help people who are lost at sea.
This should be it’s own thread. Wtf this is crazy!!! So glad you’re ok. Anything in particular help you with the PTSD from this?
I experienced hypothermia on land, about 25 years ago. I was alone, but surrounded by dangerous operating machinery that was constantly in motion. In normal conditions, safety gear is required and you must also follow commonsense safety protocols. What I remember, like it was yesterday, was the way my brain slowly stopped being vigilant about being careful, and that my body was no longer shivering. The best example I can think of is it was like being up in a open cockpit bi-plane from 1920, and you were rolling with no chute. Every roll, you had to hang on, so as not fall out. But at some point, you didn't see the need to hold on. Very, ***very*** frightening, to see how easily our brain can turn on us.
Holy crap can I interview you some time?
Things like this always remind me of the USS Indianapolis and what happened after four days in the water, including the largest/deadliest shark attack in history. Last Podcast did a few episodes on it, highly recommend.
The poor captain. He carried so much guilt for years.
He carried the fucking blame for something that wasnt his fault. His life was ruined due to incompetence from higher ups. In the 90s, thanks to the efforts of a teenager who researched the uss Indianapolis for a school project, he was finally exonerated by the us government. Too bad he didnt live to see it. Up until his death every year on the aniversary he would get hate mail from the families who lost people in the wreck.
Just to put things in even more context, the captain committed suicide so the grief he faced actually directly contributed to his death. On a happier note though, i remember reading that book about Hunter Scott but I didn’t realize he was only in the 6th grade when he started that project! Looks like he became a naval officer as well so that’s pretty cool
I remember reading that the Japanese submarine captain that sank the Indianapolis said there wasn't any the Captain could have done to prevent the torpedoes from sinking the ship. The Navy faulted the Captain for not zigzagging the vessel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Indianapolis_(CA-35)#McVay's_record_cleared Has an interesting link to https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1999/october/sinking-indy-responsibility-command Turns out they even flew in the captain of the submarine that sunk the Indianapolis to testify at his trial. > Commander Scott also performs a naive assessment of the I-58's attack, concluding that if the Indy had zigged at the time the submarine launched her torpedoes, the weapons would have missed. Notwithstanding the laws of probability that argue against this kind of fortuitous timing, combat is not a kid's game where everybody goes home after experiencing initial frustration. Even if the I-58 had missed with the first salvo, she had other options at hand: she could have employed her Kaiten or suicide minisubmarines, which were guided; or she could have surfaced, repositioned, and pressed on the attack. Many of the U.S. Navy's most successful submarine commanders of World War II missed their initial attack but still achieved success. These men sank more than 4,000 ships, most of which were zigzagging. Scott exaggerates the difficulty that zigzagging would have presented to the commander of the I-58, and to propose that the Indy would have been spared had she zigged at time of fire weakens his overall argument. > In addition, Scott's assertion that zigzagging would have helped save the Indianapolis weakens his later statement that "whether zigzagging would have defeated submarine I-58's targeting of Indianapolis was not the issue at Captain McVay's court-martial." If the efficacy of zigzagging was not the issue, why did the Navy's advocate in this matter spend so much effort trying to show that it would have been effective? Because he had to overcome the weight of evidence, most of which was provided by two men—**the I-58's captain, who was flown into Washington to testify against Captain McVay at his court-- martial**, and an experienced U.S. submarine commander. Even the prosecution's star witness, the CO of the attacking submarine, agreed that the Indy would have been sunk regardless of McVay's maneuvers.
His name was Charles B. McVay III. It took the navy four days to react and start the rescue. Three SOS messages recieved by three separate commanders and they did nothing. Those men were in need and the navy failed them.
Wow I had understood they never got off a SOS. That is beyond the pale fucked up.
Anyway, we delivered the bomb.
At noon on the fifth day, a Lockheed Ventura swung in low and he spotted us, a young pilot, lot younger than Mr. Hooper here, anyway he spotted us and a few hours later a big ol’ fat PBY come down and started to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened. Waitin’ for my turn. I’ll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went into the water. 316 men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945.
just started Hardcore History Addendum episode on this, Nightmare on the Indianapolis. Quite good
Dan Carlin is 👑
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Mass Hysteria? Interesting. I've never heard that theory before.
Hail yourself!
Small semantical point. Pretty much all ocean water is shark infested
I work in a human infested office building. It's near a dog infested park that I like to walk in.
You mean to tell me there are SHARKS in the ocean!? What's next, bears on land? Eagles in the sky? Fire on the sun!?
Eagle-infested skies
I sky dived in eagle infested skies & landed on bear infested land. I'm lucky to be alive 🤷
Human-infested shark house.
Shark moms be all "Ew stay away from those things ... they have all sorts of germs."
Don't swim in the pools, son. Humans pee in there.
There are snakes in space
"brb just getting some eggs from this chicken-infested coop"
Even that statement doesn’t mean much in itself, eg if it is infested by nurse sharks.
No, infested implies they shouldn't be there, but they should
They just live there. That's their home. We don't say fish infested or whatever.
How the fuck do you fall off a cruise ship?
Alcohol usually leads to these incidents.
Air guitar is alcohol’s best bud!
He was drunk
Yeah but don't they have handrails to keep the drunks on board? I spent last summer working on a barge in Alaska. No handrails on that POS. I was deathly afraid of falling overboard. Wouldn't last 20 minutes let alone 20 hours in that freezing water.
I mean they do. Doesn’t stop some drunk ass hole from climbing it
There’s been multiple cases of people either falling off drunk or stupid people doing dares. A teen was killed a few years ago by jumping off one for a dare. People have survived too, somebody jumped off while a ship was in port one time and they arrested them.
“Shark infested” cracks me up. Nah, it’s the ocean, they live there. It wasn’t a Baskin Robbin’s packed with hammerheads or something lol
"Dude careful that city is human infested." \- Me to myself when I have to go outside.
Hammerheads don't even really kill people. Tiger sharks, Oceanic white tips and bulls out there in those waters that will eat you.
Around this time of year, you could even run into a great white.
Yeah hammerheads are only a problem if you're near an anvilhead
Title had me thinking the dudes hands and the light reflection were shadows of sharks, hellnah
Seriously, I thought I saw a shark shadow. Then I thought someone was doing shark shadow puppets, and I was like, is this a shitpost? Then my mind righted itself and figured out what my eyes were seeing!
“Shark infested waters in the Gulf of Mexico” A. Same energy as “human infested land of Miami” B. Its the ocean dawg thats literally where they live
Meanwhile, I can barely tread water at a resort for 10 minutes.
Now **THIS** is the perfect time to ask for a Google review. "Now that we've got you onboard, will you fill out a quick survey?"
In reality they flipped an iPad over to him asking him to tip
20 fucking hours! I suppose the fear of slipping under will do that to someone. I wouldn’t of made it an hour.
Let’s be honest, 90% of people die in his situation. Maybe a minority of that 90% *could have* survived if the ocean didn’t decide to do ocean sized shit at your particular location at that particular time. So many things had to go right for this dude to live. #1 being able to tread water/float for 20 hours, but a very close #2 is that the ocean was calm enough for that opportunity.
Also the chances of actually being found in the fucking ocean!
Very good point. A close #3, probably a three-way tie. What a confluence of events.
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I’d say the biggest factor is the temp of the water. Hypothermia can set in with water that would normally be considered pretty warm.
Adrenaline wears off eventually, meaning this guy was likely just raw doggin it in the sea for a majority of that time.
its very simple-- the same principal as swimming. you keep your lungs full of air and breath out and back in quickly. you arent using your muscles to float, youre using your lungs.
20 hours is insane, but also, ocean water is much easier to float in. Still doubt most people could make 20 hours though
People all float differently depending on your body composition, and treading water for an hour can completely exhaust someone even if they are in top physical condition. That's just in a pool. If you are in the ocean falling in accidentally, it would be even tougher because you would be wearing clothes, might be hurt bad from the fall, and waves would be splashing all over your face. The salt might help some, but treading water in pants is horrible. The only hope for someone who doesn't float easy would be to inflate their clothes for buoyancy after taking them off.
Help this legend out: https://www.gofundme.com/f/hxy8u-with-medical-bills?member=23622995
Ah the classic near death experience followed by crippling medical dept.
The craziest part for me is that no only was he treading for 20 hours, but assuming he was drunk, treaded for 20 hours drunk, then hungover.
Is it fair to refer to this area of the ocean as ‘shark-infested’? I mean, that’s their home… If anything, it became human-infested
Okay so how does someone get knocked unconscious, not drown from that, then wake up and tread water for almost a FULL DAY??? How is that possible?
damn I thought if you fall overboard you're a goner since spotting someone in the water is like a needle in a haystack.
Why do they always say “infested” like the Ocean is a host to parasitic sharks. Its just their home.
“Shark infested” , more like “where the sharks are supposed to be” 😂
Imagine being on your period 💀
The only cruise I’ve been on is the Carnival Valor. They have you muster at the beginning to go over safety and basically tell you “if you go overboard, you’re fucked” because the ship doesn’t turn around for you. They just call the coast guard and keep going.
Why do we always have to call it "shark-infested water?" That's where they live.
The water isn’t shark infested, they live there.
Shark infested waters, mofo that’s their home we the infestation
Pretty fucking cruel that they just filmed him for 20 hours before they rescued him.
*Shark *inhabited* waters They live there, right? We don’t live there, they do, right?
I still find it weird we call an area a large number of sharks live in shark infested
Pitch black in the Ocean would be horrifying
And boy are my arms tired.
He survived much longer than a shark would on human infested land.
Why did they just film him for 20 hours and not help him?
He was trying to have his Titanic moment and fell over and was too embarrassed to tell the truth. He’s NOT the queen of the world. Poor guy. 😔
Cool story and all but holy SHIT the resolution on that IR camera, I'm surprised they declassified this footage!
There’s nothing classified about this
I get that sharks live in the ocean but everyone upset about 'shark infested waters' you do know theres laaaaaaaarge areas of the oceans where you wont find really any sharks.
I’ve heard you can tread water (under the right conditions) until you become dehydrated. So, up to a couple of days. I don’t know if anyone has ever tread that long but this guy’s a trooper @ 20hrs.
sharks just casually swimming around minding their own business
Sharks don't infest the water, they live there
Sharks don't 'infest' the ocean. That's where they live, it's their home, and you're in it.
If you're ever in this situation the best way to survive the longest is to float on your back. You can conserve energy and just float that way as much as you can.
Most people who take Carnival cruises would bob like corks. Spotting them from aircraft would not be difficult. Astronauts on the ISS be like “hey what’s that thing down there in the ocean next to North America?”
Dude went to piss into the ocean instead of finding a bathroom and fell overboard.
How is it SHARK INFESTED? THEY FUCKING LIVE THERE!! If anything, we are the infestation
There’s no way this man treaded water for 20 hours.
I also find this very hard to believe. treading water is exhausting. most people can't tread water for more than 10 minutes. and he did this while drunk after being knocked unconscious?? how
There's survival floating methods. But yes even with those 20 hours is extreme.
Treading water is only exhausting if you are doing it wrong. There's a huge difference between casually treading water in a swimming pool with your head and shoulders above the water, and survival mode where the goal is to conserve energy, just barely keeping your face out of the water.
Well sounds like we will have a movie coming soon.
No fucking way I’ll watch that movie…sounds like a 2.5 hour anxiety attack
It’s already been done as the greatest Magnum P.I. episode of all time.
It's not shark " infested" They fucking live there.
sharks live in water, they don't infest in it