Overboard woman ‘didn’t fall from ship, she jumped’
AN air stewardess rescued ten hours after going overboard from a luxury cruise liner in the Adriatic may have jumped, it was claimed yesterday.
A crew member on the 92,000ton Norwegian Star suggested Kay Longstaff, 46, leapt after scaling railings on the edge of the deck.
Daniel Punch said she was unlikely to have fallen into the sea by accident, adding in an exchange on Facebook: ‘She didn’t fall, she jumped.’
Passengers claimed the British woman had been drinking and arguing with her partner in the hours leading up to the incident on Saturday. And the captain of the boat that plucked Ms Longstaff to safety told how it was feared she had drowned.
Speaking for the first time since the dramatic rescue, Lovro Orsekovic said Ms Longstaff owed her life to singing to herself and practising yoga as she floated on her back before being found. It came as: Ms Longstaff’s father revealed his daughter had recently been ‘going through a very hard time’.
It emerged she suffered an injury to her face from when she hit the water and hypothermia.
A source close to the rescue operation said she had been moments from giving up when she was saved.
She was discharged from a psychiatric unit in Croatia where she was assessed for signs of stress following her ordeal.
Witnesses described an ‘emotional, full of love’ reunion between Ms Longstaff and boyfriend Craig Rayment.
Lieutenant Orsekovic, commander of the coastguard patrol boat Cavtat, said: ‘Luckily for us and her, we saw her right away, because, when she saw us, she raised her hands and waved.
‘It’s a real miracle that she has survived. People on the cruise ship thought that she hadn’t survived. She is also obviously very fit. She told us she did yoga and that, while floating in the sea, she sang to herself the whole time, so that her body temperature wouldn’t sink and she would stay awake.’
He said the feeling of saving a human life ‘cannot be measured’.
He was proud of his entire crew but in particular of Marin Delic, ‘a rescue swimmer who took the woman, exhausted from the long hours spent in the sea, to the deck’. Lieutenant Orsekovic added: ‘When she came on the deck, when our rescue swimmer brought her on the deck, she said, “You’ve saved my life, you’ve saved my life”. She was very happy to be alive.
‘Usually after ten hours people are unconscious, so she was probably prepared physically and mentally. Luckily for her… the sea and weather conditions were perfect and the temperature of the sea was around 26C so it was helpful to her. It is rare.’
A sea, land and air search was launched for Ms Longstaff after she plunged into the Adriatic from the 965ft cruise liner just before midnight on Saturday, off the northern coast of Croatia, around 100km south of Pula. She is thought to have been drinking.
The liner doubled back round to look for her in the area where she was thought to be and carried out at least four passes in its search for her. Croatia’s maritime ministry said the Norwegian Star’s captain had filed a report of the missing person, after which the search and rescue operation was launched at 2.17am.
Some ships that happened to be passing at the time later joined in the search.
Then, after CCTV footage from the Norwegian Star was studied, ‘the exact time of the fall in the sea, as well as the position of the fall, were determined with precision’, a ministry spokesman said. Ms Longstaff was found at 9.40am on Sunday, less around a kilometre from where she disappeared.
Pictures were released of her, wearing only what looked like shorts and a bikini top, climbing a ladder on to the Cavtat and later, after she had dried off, smiling and looking in remarkably good health.
Yesterday Dolores Brenko Skerjanc, of the Pula Port Authority, told Croatia’s state broadcaster HRT: ‘She was in the sea for a very long time but the sea is very warm so the chances of survival were higher. Thank God we found her alive.’
‘Thank God we found her alive’