Briton was minutes from giving up ++ Dad reveals pain in her personal life ++ Crew man claims: She didn’ t fall, she jumped
As it’s revealed yoga and singing kept Briton alive in Adriatic for ten hours, crew member claims . . .
‘Very happy to be alive’
THE British woman 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 92,000-ton 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 air stewardess had been drinking and arguing with her partner in the hours leading up to the incident on Saturday.
And last night she was labelled a ‘stupid woman’ by the mother of the liner company boss, Andrew Stuart, 55. The 83-year- old told the Daily Telegraph: ‘She didn’t fall off. She jumped. This has cost Norwegian Cruise Line 600,000 dollars. This stupid woman.’
Earlier the captain of the boat that plucked Miss Longstaff to safety told how it was feared she had drowned.
Speaking for the first time since the dramatic rescue, Lovro Oreskovic said Miss Longstaff owed her life to being fit due to practising yoga and singing to herself as she floated on her back before being found. It came as:
Miss 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 Miss Longstaff and boyfriend Craig Rayment.
Lieutenant Oreskovic, 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 Oreskovic 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 and us of course that 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 after Miss Longstaff plunged into the Adriatic from the 965ft cruise liner off the northern coast of Croatia, around 60 miles south of Pula, just before midnight on Saturday. 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.
A ministry spokesman said: ‘The Coast Guard participated in the operation with two patrolling vessels and the search aircraft. The aircraft joined the search immediately after dawn.’
A request had been made to the Italian authorities, on the other side of the Adriatic, for use of their search and rescue plane, which is equipped for night rescue, but it was not available. So the Croatian coast guard service’s own spotter plane, a Pilatus PC-9, joined the search at 6.42am.
‘All participants in maritime traffic within the search area were also informed about the search for the missing passenger. The information was transmitted in the form of a message of urgency, a Mayday relay,’ the spokesman said. This led to some ships that happened to be passing at the time joining 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’, the spokesman said.
Miss Longstaff was found at 9.40am on Sunday, less than a mile 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 as she sat round a table with members of its camouflage uniform-wearing crew, who took her to dry land in Pula.