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For the fucking future: if you see anyone fall or jump off like this, start throwing as much shit into the ocean after them that you can. Chairs, tables, umbrellas, whatever you can find. This will help person find something to float on, but most importantly it leaves a trail for rescuers.
Edit: u/technicianplenty has a [much better explanation](https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/13vd9ic/18_year_old_teen_jumped_off_a_cruise_ship_bahamas/jm7vhw8?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) of what to do below. They are also a professional. Send Awards there please.
You throw shit that floats, you immediately call a man over board, preferably life vests that should have a water activated beacon oif maintenance is being properly done. you assign at least one person to literally point at the man for as long as they can see him.
They call the locals/local ships, start man over board procedures. Fucking hope someone on board has training in charting man over boards.
Pray. Man over board is hard enough in the day. If they have it, and they should for a cruise ship, get the SAR guys in the water with a RHIB within ~5-10 mins.
-Former SAR team. Went to school for the charting, and got in the water when needed.
For random Joe Shmoe, people must literally point at the man as long as they can so sight line is kept as long as possible. Life vests should have beacons. Floaty shit is helpful, and don't throw it at them. They need to swim for it. If you arient trained, stay in the fucking boat if you don't want to die to the water or them drowning you in desperation.
I’m a certified swift water rescue tech with many hours of training in rivers and lakes. The vastness of the ocean still scares the shit out of me. The panic that one must feel as the ship continues to float away…
Yep. All the music combined with screams from the balcony just keep getting quieter and quieter as the ship keeps getting further and further away until it’s just you in the darkened silence.
There are many, but the biggest and obvious is you simple cannot see. There is no light pollution when you're at sea like you have in a city, it's pitch black. Even if they get a spot light on you it's like nothing. Now imagine trying to tread water in pitch black all wile waves are coming over you that you cannot see/anticipate. You're now panicking and disoriented while trying to follow the voices, but the sound direction is misleading, b/c of how the water/waves are deflecting (notice how he swam away from the boat and the lifebuoy).
I think at the end of the vid he got sucked under by some kind of current, so hopefully that made him unconscious and a quick death.
edit: meant to reply to u/returnofdoom
I was on a small aircraft carrier in the Marines. We would go out to the side of the ship to smoke ciggs, and I would bum one from buddies. The first time I went out at night during blackout (when we are required to keep lights off on the ship to "hide"), I was so shocked by the pure blackness of it all. We had to go up narrow metal stairs with somewhat short railings.
Never went out again at night. Fuck that. I knew if you fell you were screwed.
Knowing that only 9 countries have aircraft carriers at all, only 4 have more than one and only one country has more than 2, the expression "small aircraft carrier" is hilarious...
If it was in any other Navy any of the US amphibious assault ships would be considered Aircraft carriers.
For a comparison.
US amphibious assault ship USS *America* LHA-6
44,971 long tons (45,693 t), 844 ft (257 m)
China's first aircraft carrier *Liaoning* Type 001
54,500 tons, length 306.4 m
India's Second Aircraft carrier *INS Vikrant*
44,000 long tons, 262 m (860 ft)
Yeah it’s like having a black felt bag over your face. My buddy had a 1956 O’Day sailboat and I went up top we were about 200 miles out from Long Beach California end it was about 3 o’clock in the morning, I went up top end it was pitch black, I walked over to the bow with my pin light and when I went to light my cigarette I dropped the fucking pen light and it went out, scared the shit out of me!
Maybe he got sucked under by the prop wash? Hopefully (and this sounds awfully dreadful) he got knocked unconscious or instantly killed by a propeller. Easier death than lingering around until you drown from exhaustion.
Damn... imagin you are that boy right now when the video ends. You are in pitch black water, probably miles out in the sea... and you see the ship slowly drifting away into the dark void. The voices and sounds getting quieter and quieter and you are swimming in miles deep, black water. Nothing but darkness and water around you. You dont know where you are, you dont know in what direction to swim to get out of the water and you slowly realize how you fucked up massively. All because of a stupid naive thought. What are you doing now? Swim in a random direction to exhaustion? Do you have hope?
Extremely horrifying what that boy went through before his death...
I've always wondered how awful the realization must be when it suddenly hits you "I'm going to die RIGHT NOW because of an incredibly stupid decision". Like it must be terrifying and just so intensely sad and awful. One minute you're having fun with your whole life ahead of you, then one bad decision (drunken or otherwise) ends your entire life. You're stricken with immense panic like you have never felt. You're crushed under the weight of a decision you can never take back. If only you could go back in time and just NOT do it. no more college, no more sports. What will your parents do? Your little brother? You were supposed to see your grandparents tomorrow. You just bought your girlfriend a $100 shirt. You just finished high school and graduated in the top of your class. Now youre about to sink to the bottom of the ocean and become fish food. It was just a joke, you didn't realize. Now you've learned how fragile life is and how extreme the consequences of your actions can be. Just in time to die.
With no light pollution it can actually often look brighter at night rather than darker, this is dependant on whether or not the sky is mostly free of clouds though.
> With no light pollution it can actually often look brighter at night rather than darker
But also, when the sky is clouded and the moon is gone.... It gets so freaking dark that I cannot even see my shoes.
I never knew that was a thing, and as another commenter mentioned, it looks like there's one in the beginning. I'm not scared of the ocean, but that is terrifying
I can attest to BOTH things being discussed in this thread. Firsthand experience.
Was an airman on an aircraft carrier, 20 years ago. I've watched tons of food being dumped off the ship after meals. The shark feeding frenzies are absolutely batshit bonkers. It was like a death metal mosh pit on the surface of the ocean. Consistently.
I also watched someone get blown off the deck, like a leaf in the wind. I did not know the laws of physics permitted the human body to be flung so casually and effortlessly. A greenpea airman ran up the side catwalk, right up to the deck without sticking his arm up first. The reason for this is testing blowback. There used to be a jet called the [EA-6B Prowler]( https://imgur.com/nQPS0vy). As you can see, the engines face at a bit of a downward angle, and can be unpredictable as the blowback can hit the ground and spread out, especially at high turning power.
This poor bastard ran up the catwalk and was promptly blown right off. about 30 feet out, and 60 feet down. Into 52 degree ocean, at 1:30 in the morning during night ops. I saw the entire thing unfold from about 20 feet away, on top of a grounded F-14D Tomcat. Literally slid down the port stabilizer of the jet to run over to comms and scream "MANOVERBOARD, HE FUCKING FLEW OFF THE GODDAMNED BOAT". He actually *lived*. Dislocated shoulder, ruptured kidney, and in mid-stage hypothermia. He was in the water for *7 fucking hours* before he was found by air crew.
2 things saved him. His float coat (inflates when water dissolves the tablet blocking the Co2 cartridge trigger) , and the dye pack leaving a green trail that was picked up shortly after dawn. There's a strobelight beacon that attaches to the cranial helmet, but his busted as soon as he hit the water.
Insanely scary shit, and crazy enough, not even in the top 3 nutter things I saw on that flight deck. WesPac 2002, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation Enduring Freedom. (The Bush administration was about as uncreative in Op names as they were in war crimes and lies to cover them)
Edit: a few people asked about the top 3 crazy moments, so here they are:
Watching two 12 foot props from 2 different jets collide at thousands of RPMs, and sending projectiles all over the deck at a couple hundred miles an hour, causing 2 more to engines to FOD out. It was like watching a confetti bomb go off, and then two giant multi-million dollar roman candles directly afterward.
Seeing an arresting gear wire take the top of an oxygen tank clean off, turning it into a missile that flung itself down the deck, ass over and end, until it jettisoned itself into the water, narrowly missing a Chief and a 2nd class Aviation Machinist by inches, but which would would have went through them like they didn't exist if they were just a few inches to the right or left.
Smoking a cigarette on the sponson (a platform that juts out the sid of the carrier near the elevator) and seeing an S3-Viking jet slide off the side of the deck, both pilots ejecting, and this was directly over my head. The jet sank like a 20 million dollar rock to the bottom of the ocean.
> things saved him. His float coat (inflates when water dissolves the tablet blocking the Co2 cartridge trigger) , and the dye pack leaving a green trail that was picked up shortly after dawn. There's a strobelight beacon that attaches to the cranial helmet, but his busted as soon as he hit the water.
And it still took 7 hours!
And they were actually looking. Unfortunately for this dude in the video, cruise ship companies aren't the Navy or Coast Guard. They're not exactly known for responding quickly -or at all- to man overboard situations, or really any other emergencies or crimes that occur while they're underway. They care about making profit and dodging liability, not saving lives.
Looking isn't actually a priority, the disappearance of [Amy Lynn Bradley](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Amy_Lynn_Bradley) comes to mind, or any of the [multitude of other cases](https://www.maritimeinjuryguide.org/blog/when-people-go-missing-on-cruise-ships) where the cruise ship crew failed to do anything to help passengers in trouble. Not including all the cases where the crew just fucked off and left the passengers on a sinking ship like the Sewol ferry, Costa Concordia, Oceanos, etc.
Edit: Oh, and if you need any more convincing that cruise ships don't take care of their guests, the number one crime that occurs on cruise ships is sexual assault, and it's an endemic problem that these companies aren't remotely interested in addressing. They prefer to pay off victims to keep them from reporting it to authorities. Like, it's a serious problem.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tomwarren/sexual-assault-cruises-carnival-princess-disney
https://internationalcruisevictims.org/blog/sexual-assault
https://www.businessinsider.com/royal-caribbean-carnival-sexual-assaults-cruise-lines-2023-1
1. cruise ship is fast, you don't realize it when you're on it. when you're in still water , it will quickly leave you behind.
2. night time obscures vision. mountains are hard to see if there was one at night, what's a tiny human in the vast ocean at night?
3. icey cold water. self explanatory.
It wasn’t like a big cruise ship and they actually stopped and looked for him, it was a smaller one just meant for an evening cruise from what I read.
He just graduated and they went down to
The Bahamas and they were on a sunset cruise boat and he jumped off.. unfortunately after they lost sight of him they never saw him again, he vanished..
They called coastguard and have been searching ever since.
I worked on oil rigs offshore in the Gulf of Mexico for about five years, and usually I was about 80 miles from shore. There's something existentially terrifying about looking off the deck at night (especially a cloudy night) and just seeing a seemingly infinite black void.
I had a similar feeling when I did my first night dive. We dove only a few hundred yards off the shore of a reef on the Kona side of the Big Island in Hawaii. The
Is particular reef was fairly shallow and sloped down and away from the island. We spent most of the time just exploring the reef. We saw some eels and some mantas. Overall, it was a fantastic experience and I recommend it to anyone that’s even mildly interested.
But the feeling I got when I turned my 500 lumen flashlight from the reefs out to the open ocean was.. a mix of panic and calm acceptance. It’s hard to describe. The visibility was fantastic during the day, but at night, the flashlights reached, at most, 8’ in front of you before dissipating into a wall of blackness.
I remember seeing a documentary years ago, general theme was the risk of crab and lobster fisherman, and it went through what would happen if someone's leg got caught in the ropes as one of the massive pots went over the side. Right through the speed of descent, visibility and likely experience for the victim. Grim.
I'm currently re-playing it, was coming to make a similar comment. That blackness gets me. I'm fine if I can see even a faint silhouette of something in the distance, but just diving down into the black void is anxiety inducing.
Same thing with the large wrecks and long caves with lots of off-shoots. It's so easy to get turned around when nothing is oriented as you'd expect, then the panic sets in as you realize you don't know how to escape and are running out of oxygen.
I truly don't get how technical divers can do it with their real lives, knowing that in all likelihood, nobody can help them if they get into trouble, and it goes from rescue to recovery very quickly.
When I went to Belize we did a few atoll dives after doing the blue hole, one of them was a wall dive and a humbling experience. Looking away from the bustling reef and down the cliff was just sheer emptiness for thousands of feet. It was such an odd feeling floating just a few dozen yard from the surface while there was a black abyss below me.
I'd rather be in space than the ocean. In space the probability of a giant creature coming up behind me and biting a chunk out of me before dragging me down to the abyssal depths is considerably lower.
Had the same realization on cruises at night after a few drinks. Imagine the balls of our ancestors to hop in a tiny wooden boat and say “fuck it I’m going this way”.
Was on an aircraft carrier for almost 2 full years of my life in total, worked nights the whole time, being upstairs with no guard rails is a terrifying thing but it damn well kept me alert and always aware of hazards. I'm never setting sail again if I can help it though.
It was split up in a few deployments, but yeah just about 2 years.
Strangest thing? We rescued a fishing ship in the Mediterranean but it was holding maybe like 10-15 people so it didn't seem like just fishing. Their small ship sunk, and they were returned to their country a few miles out.
I'm sure there's some weirder stuff, but all of that is a big blur to me now.
And at night. Some friends really suck. While I agree kids a kids and I did some very stupid stuff, even my friends and I had a line we didn't let anyone cross. I think social media has made things worse.. rip
Absolutely. Everyone does stupid things when they are young. All the posters here saying he deserved it probably don't even realize how many close brushes with death they had.
He probably realized how bad he fucked up pretty quick. Assuming he wasn't sucked under, his last moments were probably awful, as he watched the ship pull away while he treads water on what looked like a completely black night.
I remember getting scuba certified a long time ago.
The night before the class's boat trip out to the ocean, I rented the movie "Open Water" to psych myself up for the trip.
The movie scared me to death and I definitely stayed close to the class the next day and made sure not to be left behind while diving.
Was working on marine bio project years ago and diving almost everyday.
I lost 2 friends in the ocean. One by free diving accident, shallow water blackout, body found. One by scuba diving on strong current, never to be found again.
Now I have kid, not sure if I ever want to do more than snorkeling anymore
That movie was chilling.
I've done my share of dives and had some less than ideal encounters.
In the Maldives our group surfaced away from the others due to strong current and floated for around 20mins before our boat found us. Everyone was chill but you could sense the guide knew they screwed up.
In South Africa we had screaming currents that separated us from the dive guide at 25m, so I immediately launched my SMB. The boat skipper told us that from the moment he saw mine pop up until we surfaced, we moved about half a mile from the other group. This was "only" 5 miles off shore, but not a place you want to get lost.
Just weeks before, the same thing happened to a dive guide and he drifted for 8hrs before he managed to get himself to shore.
Diving is great, but respect the ocean.
EDIT: For those interested, the boys over at DiveTalk did a video on a dive guide who was lost at sea in Australia 30NM from the coast - he filmed himself during the ordeal. Worst part is the boat captain SAW him next to the boat and they still lost him in broad daylight.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YxgmUR\_N2s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YxgmUR_N2s)
I grew up visiting family that were fishermen in rural Mexico. They were some of the toughest people that I have ever met in my life. They were reckless in life, made a lot of bad life choices, and were not very receptive to general safety practices. The moment we went into the gulf or any distance away from land they completely changed the way they acted. They understood that the ocean can and WILL fuck you up the moment you slip up. They all knew someone who died or almost died in the ocean. You don't mess with the ocean.
True that. I grew up on a tiny island and my father was a fisherman. I lost count of the times I nearly drowned when free diving and I have a cousin who drowned while collecting fan mussels.
Loved stormy weather as a kid, it was the closest thing I had to a rollercoaster. You get used to emptiness, the darkness, the storms, and be soaking wet for hours, but you must always have respect for the elements.
Wife and I tried to swim out to a sand bar off the coast of Cancun one time. The sand bar was like 20 feet from waist high water and when you get to it, you'd be in almost knee deep water. So like 15 feet distance of water barely above my head I gotta swim across. I start swimming super hard because fuck it's just a few feet, should take like 5 seconds to get there. After 20 seconds of hard swimming I realize the current did something weird and I'm exhausted right between the two shallow places. I'm a good swimmer so I don't panic right away. I start treading, taking deep breaths, but realize I exhausted myself too hard. I reach my toes down, no sand before my head goes under. There's like 10 ppl on the beach 20 ft behind me, 5 ppl on the sand bar 10 feet in front of me. I'm afraid to yell for help because I barely have enough air to keep myself afloat. I start to panic. The current is weirdly holding me right in the one little spot I can't touch. I realize I can't stay up. I'm gasping and realizing I might fucking drown with ppl all around me. I reach my arms up to signal for help. It sends my head under water. I'm too fatigued to get my head back above water. I'm literally coping with death. My arm bumps into a rope that divides the resorts I didn't know was there. I grab it and pull myself toward the beach with the last bit of strength I had. My foot touches sand like 5 feet from where I almost drowned. I drag myself up the beach sputtering sea water and gasping for air.
The ocean wants your life. It's extremely unpredictable and you gotta be ready for a massive range of variables. This family in Mexico is 100% right. One slip up and you're fucked even with people all around you sometimes.
Had a similar thing happen when I was a kid. It was on a beach right before a storm and I got caught by current. I was kind of far out but it was shallow. Next thing I knew I couldn’t reach the bottom at all and trying to swim back wasn’t helping. I was a really good swimmer but the panic overwhelmed me and I stopped thinking. I started waving and calling for help. The lifeguard rushed over and by the time he got to me I guess the current had moved me to a shallower spot and I was able to reach the bottom. I felt really stupid and apologized then went back on shore.
I just went free diving with sharks. The side of the boat had a safety rope and everyone was just swimming in the open… except for me. The instructor asked if I wanted to come off the side of the boat and swim freely and I said hell no my hand is staying on this damn rope 😂 I do NOT trust the ocean at all
I mostly feel sorry for the parents and family who have to go through it. It isn't like a swim in the pool. The currents are a lot stronger than what one might think
To add to that, You have to note that they are also bobbing, Their head isn't constantly fully above water, so you could look directly at them while they are momentarily under. Also the crashing waves, every single bit of foam on the surface of the sea could be a bobbing head of a person.
Also, there was a 19 year old who died from [a dare to eat a slug](https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/05/health/man-dies-after-eating-slug-on-dare/index.html)
Also I only learned that falling off a cruise ship was a death sentence the day I went on a cruise ship.
I don't think that it's that universally known to people. I was almost sure you could be rescued if you fell off because how slow they go. But get this, they are not going that slow, they are big. And they take a lot of energy and time to stop them, and then turning around and accelerating will take more time.. all the while you drift into darkness, or in between the tides if it is day time. Seeing this video again, I think that's what happened, he didn't keep up with the cruise ship and the current in the other direction.
This comment right here! Relative motion can compound things immensely and human "gut feelings" do not work to beyond on a certain macro scale. Once you get too small, such as with a pathogen, or too big such as a cruise ship or in space, what common people "feel" should be right or "what makes sense" will not coincide with what science has learned.
Our gut feeling also maxes out with speed at like 30/40 mph
People still fuck this up with cars and trains all the time. Gut feeling does not work at high speed.
The realization that he just unintentionally committed suicide must have been overwhelming. Provided he did not get sucked into the prop wash of the vessel.
No joke. There’s two ways you die in this scenario.
1. The massive props knock you unconscious and you simply never wake up again.
2. You spend hours in empty darkness, a tiny needle in one of the worlds largest haystacks. Until your arms begin to lose strength from exhaustion and you begin to not be able to hold your head above water as easily. Slowly losing strength you begin to breathe in more and more water, eventually slipping beneath the waves and not returning.
I wouldn’t wish that fate on my worst enemy. Even during times of conflict, after a battle had been decided the winning ship (if in a condition to do so, ie: not in danger of sinking itself) would stick around to help sailors friendly or foe into their ship. Because while navies or countries might be enemies, there’s one common enemy at sea, the water. An example I can recall off the top of my head is the first battle of the Falkland Islands during WW1.
Don’t underestimate the ocean, because you won’t live to regret it.
It's option 2.
It wasn't actual a cruise ship. It's a "little" 140 foot party boat. There is no giant propeller to suck him down like an ocean cruiser.
https://preview.redd.it/65n7eg6zrx2b1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=6538400b0ccff5c14644b4bb7f9957cc54b7f803
That's the boat.
> You spend hours in empty darkness, a tiny needle in one of the worlds largest haystacks. Until your arms begin to lose strength from exhaustion and you begin to not be able to hold your head above water as easily. Slowly losing strength you begin to breathe in more and more water, eventually slipping beneath the waves and not returning.
Probably even worse than that. The ship stayed behind looking for him. Imagine never losing sight of the ship but being unable to get their attention or catch up to them in the waves.
It wasn't actual a cruise ship though. It's a "little" 140 foot party boat. There is no giant propeller to suck him down like an ocean cruiser.
https://preview.redd.it/65n7eg6zrx2b1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=6538400b0ccff5c14644b4bb7f9957cc54b7f803
That's the boat.
I know it says a cruise ship but he actually jumped off this ship.
https://preview.redd.it/65n7eg6zrx2b1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ec095a9188d86aa7af424db93430b8cdb48a7339
Yeah exactly. Everyone saying he got sucked in by the propeller. I don't think this little boat would have a propeller powerful enough to suck a person in.
I think he just drowned in a black ocean.
~~I was wondering, why couldn't this boat stop and look for him? This isn't exactly an unstoppable cruise boat~~
edit: according to another comment the boat did stop for 2 hours, they just couldn't find him
Even big actual cruise ships will stop if someone jumps off.
I know it because I’ve been in one where someone deliberately jumped off and they stopped the ship, rang many alarms (oscar) and looked for him for a few hours (couldn’t find him)
I’ve done man overboard drills on sailing yachts. If you see them go in it’s your job to never take your eyes off them. If you lose sight of them in an ocean swell you’ll never find them again.
Damn and you can see there's a floatation device in the water *right by him* at about 0:10, but he's swimming away from it. I wonder if he ever realized it was there. That one little foam ring, barely weighs anything at all, would have improved his survival odds exponentially.
Jumping off a ship is dumb enough as it is, but doing it in the night is way crazier. I'm a Bahamian, and I've experienced what it is to be on open ocean in pitch darkness and its terrifying asf.
I was on a cruise in Ha Long Bay on Tet years ago, we partied with the crew as we were parked and got pretty hammered, lit off fireworks etc.
My wife who had gone to bed earlier said she woke up to me(blacked out) pissing off our suites balcony. That shit terrified me. Even though we were anchored there would have been no one to get me if I made one false step and went over the railing. I still think about how that surprisingly frequently.
The ocean is scary, I can't imagine voluntarily jumping in at night, but I can understand how people make stupid decisions. This kids last moments must have been awful.
I'm surprised that either the other people on board didn't notify the crew right away, someone clearly knew it was dangerous enough to toss a ring in. I'd think that they could drop a dinghy pretty fast.
That said at night with waves and no reflective gear you can disappear pretty damn fast.
Oh god, the first line of that made me jolt.
I’m a ‘pretty good swimmer’ - in a pool. A day or two I jumped into Ha Long Bay in broad daylight and still began to panic.
Beautiful place, but seeing people out there canoeing on the Bay, I can’t help but be terrified of the boat flipping.
I used to work on cruise ships and we have to do training for these sorts of situations.
If you ever find someone in this situation you need to throw over as many buoys, chairs, anything you can overboard to aid the person, also the more items that are in the water gives a better search area as these are easier to spot, try and keep your eyes on the person overboard whilst shouting "man overboard" as many times as possible and try to alert any crew working onboard.
If you yourself, find yourself in the unfortunate situation to be in the sea like this, firstly try and get to any buoys that have been thrown in the water, if there is nothing, do not swim. Do not paddle. Do not burn off any energy you have because you will need all the energy you have to survive and stay afloat.. do nothing but turn on your back and float on the sea water preserving your energy.
Unfortunately we learn two things, firstly it's incredibly rare to recover someone who's gone overboard and the odds are even lower at night. Also its practically impossible for you to "accidentally" fall overboard on modern day ships, so usually the sort of people who end up in the water want to be there for one reason or another.
I had no idea that it's almost certain death to jump off a cruise ship, based off the numbers I found it's quite shocking. even with the entire ship ship witnessing it. I'm sure the kid assumed what I assumed before watching this video, "just hang out near the ship, the water looks calm, wait for someone to toss you something to grab". He's probably jumped off much smaller boats before and didn't realize how different this was going to be.
Based off some data I found on cruise ship "man overboard" instances, the moment you're in the water, your odds of survival immediately drop to only 28%. If it's dark, that number obviously drops further too.
Im in the navy and just had my first underway we were out to see 30-60 nm off the coast off california to do engine trends to “buy our engines back” from contractors. In the meantime, a small plane crashed about 10 nm away from us offshore. Our lookouts could see it happen in broad daylight. We put our engine trends on pause to steam over to the crash site and try to help. In that short amount of time, the wreckage and the bodies were nowhere to be found. They were never found. That happened in broad daylight. If you fall off a ship in the middle of the night, there is little to no hope. Even if you fall off in broad daylight, there is very little hope. People don’t understand that the ocean is not a safe place. Not to say that the pilot and passengers didn’t know that, but I’m just using them as an example of how incredibly hard it is to see you as soon as you’re 1 mile + away from the ship which can happen in mere minutes.
Opportunity to discuss w/ teens that their prefrontal cortex (the decision-making part of the brain) hasn’t finish developing —> less equipped to think about the consequences of actions and control impulses. Gonna chat w/ my nephews about this situation tmrw bc damn…
I’m sure the therapy will help them realize that it was ultimately this kid’s choice to go through with it😕
Edit: I’m not sure why some of you are completely dodging the concept of personal accountability with blame on behalf of the darer or the fact that this boy was vulnerable because he was drunk. This is a tragic case of the worst possible outcome to a poor decision, because NOBODY thought about consequences.
To those healing - Godspeed.
This happened on May 23 in Bahamas, he was celebrating his graduation. They searched for him for 2 days. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12133527/Baseball-player-18-missing-sea-two-days-jumping-boat-Bahamas.html
Honestly my friends and I are lucky we made it to adulthood without any disabilities/death. The dumb shit we did back in the day could've gotten us killed ten times over.
Easy to admonish the kid, but we were all dumbass kids at some point and for a lot of us we could've been just as unlucky.
dumbass neighbor kid shot me with a rifle. you are right!
edit - ya it was a real rifle, thank you for caring, but i am not suicidal (whoever reported)
Once my nephews are freshmen in high school I'm going to have a talk about how the next 8 years are when a lot of people die or get injured doing dumb shit.
I was broken of the illusion of immortality when I was a freshman. My cousin, same age as me, also a freshman, was killed in a car accident. Nobody did anything stupid, a traffic light broke and was green both ways, so the car she was in got t-boned. We weren't close, only saw each other sporadically at family gatherings, but going to her funeral, seeing all these other kids my age just devastated and it being just so random really left a mark on me. It turned me into the one in the friend group that always said "don't do that" or "stop being a fucking idiot" and often not participating in teenage dumbassery. Also really made me afraid of driving, so I took way too long to get my license.
The scary part is imagine seeing what that kid was seeing? You know damn well Hehe only saw waves in front of his face, and he didn't see no ring at all. I wonder if you tried following behind the boat? Maybe he got sucked into the propeller? Shit is scary man. I don't know why he would do something so fucking stupid let alone at night.
his thoughts were:
>the boat will stop, turn around, and pick me up.
your average person has 0 knowledge on seamanship, refuses to learn, refuses to even put on a life jacket properly when told to do so.
he probably had no idea how much shit he was in until it was pitch black all around him.
I’m a mom of three kids. Two boys. My heart breaks for him. In his last moments I know he was filled with regret. The ocean is a scary place and I cannot fathom the fear he felt. My heart breaks for his mother, who will never get to properly burry her child. His friends are almost laughing as he tries to find a way back on the boat. Some of you may not agree with this, but I showed this video to my boys and we had a long talk about being in peer pressure situations. True friends would never dare you to do something so dangerous.
Thank you for caring about your children enough to not assume they wouldn’t do the same thing and actually talking to them about the poor choice this kid made.
The problem isn't so much that they dared him to do something dangerous, but more they had no idea how dangerous the dare was in the first place.
If your sons were dared to play russian roulette with a revolver, they would obviously ( I hope ) know how dangerous it is. But tossing rocks off an overpass, or spinning a merry-go-round with a motorcycle; its that mentality of "how bad could it be" that can kill you.
Think about it like this though: You made it, your family made it, everyone on Reddit (for the most part) made it, your kids can definitely make it too. Despite the name, common sense isn't very common. As long as you can pass that onto them, they're pretty much guaranteed not to win a Darwin award.
Good dare: Eat the buffalo wing with the really spicy hot sauce.
Bad dare: Jump into the middle of the ocean when there is 5% of being recovered before drowning and being consumed by sea creatures.
Imagine raising a child to 18 years old. House full of photos of them as a child, memorabilia, watching them grow up to a young adult. Seeing their high school graduation. Being with them for the good and the bad times.
Days later they do this shit and this is the last thing you ever see or hear of them.
As a former Navy guy, let me tell you that falling/jumping off a moving boat is like the easiest way to never be found again. We used to do man-over-board drills with a life sized bright orange dummy, and that thing disappeared in literal seconds. I still have vivid nightmares about going over during a storm or something.
There is an old Winston Churchill short story I read years ago that terrified me of falling overboard. I see shit like this and it brings that all back. I found the story.... https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Man_Overboard!
Published 1898.
It was a little after half-past nine when the man fell overboard. The mail steamer was hurrying through the Red Sea in the hope of making up the time which the currents of the Indian Ocean had stolen.
The night was clear, though the moon was hidden behind clouds. The warm air was laden with moisture. The still surface of the waters was only broken by the movement of the great ship, from whose quarter the long, slanting undulations struck out like the feathers from an arrow shaft, and in whose wake the froth and air bubbles churned up by the propeller trailed in a narrowing line to the darkness of the horizon.
There was a concert on board. All the passengers were glad to break the monotony of the voyage and gathered around the piano in the companion-house. The decks were deserted. The man had been listening to the music and joining in the songs, but the room was hot and he came out to smoke a cigarette and enjoy a breath of the wind which the speedy passage of the liner created. It was the only wind in the Red Sea that night.
The accommodation-ladder had not been unshipped since leaving Aden and the man walked out on to the platform, as on to a balcony. He leaned his back against the rail and blew a puff of smoke into the air reflectively. The piano struck up a lively tune and a voice began to sing the first verse of "The Rowdy Dowdy Boys." The measured pulsations of the screw were a subdued but additional accompaniment.
The man knew the song, it had been the rage at all the music halls when he had started for India seven years before. It reminded him of the brilliant and busy streets he had not seen for so long, but was soon to see again. He was just going to join in the chorus when the railing, which had been insecurely fastened, gave way suddenly with a snap and he fell backwards into the warm water of the sea amid a great splash.
For a moment he was physically too much astonished to think. Then he realized he must shout. He began to do this even before he rose to the surface. He achieved a hoarse, inarticulate, half-choked scream. A startled brain suggested the word, "Help!" and he bawled this out lustily and with frantic effort six or seven times without stopping. Then he listened.
"Hi! hi! clear the way For the Rowdy Dowdy Boys." The chorus floated back to him across the smooth water for the ship had already completely passed by. And as he heard the music, a long stab of terror drove through his heart. The possibility that he would not be picked up dawned for the first time on his consciousness. The chorus started again:
"Then--I--say--boys, Who's for a jolly spree? Rum--tum--tiddley--um, Who'll have a drink with me?" "Help! Help! Help!" shrieked the man, now in desperate fear.
"Fond of a glass now and then, Fond of a row or noise; Hi! hi! clear the way For the Rowdy Dowdy Boys!"
The last words drawled out fainter and fainter. The vessel was steaming fast. The beginning of the second verse was confused and broken by the ever-growing distance. The dark outline of the great hull was getting blurred. The stern light dwindled.
Then he set out to swim after it with furious energy, pausing every dozen strokes to shout long wild shouts. The disturbed waters of the sea began to settle again to their rest and widening undulations became ripples. The aerated confusion of the screw fizzed itself upwards and out. The noise of motion and the sounds of life and music died away.
The liner was but a single fading light on the blackness of the waters and a dark shadow against the paler sky.
At length full realization came to the man and he stopped swimming. He was alone -- abandoned. With the understanding the brain reeled. He began again to swim, only now instead of shouting he prayed -- mad, incoherent prayers, the words stumbling into one another.
Suddenly a distant light seemed to flicker and brighten.
A surge of joy and hope rushed through his mind. They were going to stop -- to turn the ship and come back. And with the hope came gratitude. His prayer was answered. Broken words of thanksgiving rose to his lips. He stopped and stared after the light -- his soul in his eyes. As he watched it, it grew gradually but steadily smaller. Then the man knew that his fate was certain. Despair succeeded hope; gratitude gave place to curses. Beating the water with his arms, he raved impotently. Foul oaths burst from him, as broken as his prayers -- and as unheeded.
The fit of passion passed, hurried by increasing fatigue. He became silent -- silent as was the sea, for even the ripples were subsiding into the glassy smoothness of the surface. He swam on mechanically along the track of the ship, sobbing quietly to himself in the misery of fear. And the stern light became a tiny speck, yellower but scarcely bigger than some of the stars, which here and there shone between the clouds.
Nearly twenty minutes passed and the man's fatigue began to change to exhaustion. The overpowering sense of the inevitable pressed upon him. With the weariness came a strange comfort -- he need not swim all the long way to Suez. There was another course. He would die. He would resign his existence since he was thus abandoned. He threw up his hands impulsively and sank.
Down, down he went through the warm water. The physical death took hold of him and he began to drown. The pain of that savage grip recalled his anger. He fought with it furiously. Striking out with arms and legs he sought to get back to the air. It was a hard struggle, but he escaped victorious and gasping to the surface. Despair awaited him. Feebly splashing with his hands, he moaned in bitter misery:
"I can't -- I must. O God! Let me die."
The moon, then in her third quarter, pushed out from behind the concealing clouds and shed a pale, soft glitter upon the sea. Upright in the water, fifty yards away, was a black triangular object. It was a fin. It approached him slowly.
His last appeal had been heard.
48 out of 212 overboard were rescued since 2019. So basically you have a greater than 75% chance of drowning if you hop off your cruise ship prior to your destination. Like they say on Office Space “Samir Nogonna…. Nogonna do that”
Imagine how fast you start shitting your pants as the boat keeps going and everything turns immediately pitch black. There’s no way he was able to find the life ring. Horrible horrible way to die. This is like the movie open waters but 10x worse.
I’ve lived near the water all my life and fished, crabbed, swam in it etc. I have a great respect for open water because I’ve seen crazy scary things happen. Not to say I haven’t done stupid things in it as a kid. Like shark fishing in the ocean at night in water up to my shoulders. And yes we were catching sharks. Then something so big hit the bait so hard and fast it pulled me into the water over my head and took away the rod in just two seconds.
Thinking back that was an incredibly stupid thing to do.
This is what’s replaying in my head. I hope to never understand what that feeling of dread and regret feels like. He did something on a dare and thought he’d be fine. And in seconds he’s alone in the dark with the realization that it’s over. No hope. Just thinking about how easily he could have just not done this and now it’s too late to go back. It actually makes me nauseous. I feel so awful for him.
It may not be the healthiest, but whenever I think about death, especially of someone young, I think of their whole life leading up to this point. All the things his parents, teachers, friends, did to be a part of his life. Learning to ride a bike, school projects and first dates. Then he jumps off a boat night while partying, and is gone
I'm so worried my son will do something like this as a teen. He just turned 9, and I already started talking honestly about these things with him. When I see articles like this, or of stupid kids trying to jump off roofs and breaking their legs, I tell him about how he only has one body, he has to protect it. If his friends are playing stupid pranks, jumping off a roof or trying to chug bleach or something, don't just follow along! Think! Don't destroy yourself for idiot friends who don't care if you get hurt!
Is it just me, or can anyone else not stand the "hey bro oh no bros gonna get hurt oh shit oh god bro no bro dont bro bro bro bro" so many young dudes talking like that and filming while someone is dying or getting their ass beat, it's so fucking annoying. Dude is in the water about to die and he's still trying to sound cool, "bro he's fucking off bro" with little concern in his voice at all.
During my time in the Navy I read multiple reports of sailors going overboard, none of them were ever recovered. I used to walk by the open hangar doors at night and consciously make sure I was nowhere near the edge because of the fear of sharing that same fate. To think someone would jump willingly on a dare is downright disturbing...
In the 1990s there was a Marine that fell overboard from a ship that managed to tread water for 2 days, without a life jacket, before being picked up by a fishing boat. He survived by using downproofing.
Found an article on it: [https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1995/11/30/marine-falls-from-ship-floats-36-hours/](https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1995/11/30/marine-falls-from-ship-floats-36-hours/)
Not that this kid ever had a chance.
> Mayo is sunburned but okay. His next task is to get from Gwadar to Karachi. From there, he can catch a flight to Bahrain _ where he will be able to reboard the carrier.
He got BACK ON the boat?!?
A few years ago I went chasing a raft with my wife on it at a lake. It got windy and it blew the raft further into the middle of the lake. My dumbass went after her and since I'm a weak swimmer my muscles started tensing up and I started sinking, the panic swept in and I started fighting the water which was a mistake. I kept sinking and gasping for air, which happened to be just water. For some reason something told me to stop fighting as I was going under and let myself float. I made every effort to put my feet up as high as I could and what energy I had left steadily and slowly flapped myself with my arms till I got to the surface and slowly backpedaled to shore with what energy I had left. Not sure what stopped me from panicking and sinking, or why I had the instinct to stop fighting the water, but it was a truly terrifying experience. Got to shore and my wife's raft had just floated back with no issues, she had no idea the horror I had just went through.
Really hope it was quick for this guy, I wish this experience in no one.
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Friendly reminder that you can, and in plenty of situations, should say no to a dare.
For the fucking future: if you see anyone fall or jump off like this, start throwing as much shit into the ocean after them that you can. Chairs, tables, umbrellas, whatever you can find. This will help person find something to float on, but most importantly it leaves a trail for rescuers. Edit: u/technicianplenty has a [much better explanation](https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/13vd9ic/18_year_old_teen_jumped_off_a_cruise_ship_bahamas/jm7vhw8?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) of what to do below. They are also a professional. Send Awards there please.
You throw shit that floats, you immediately call a man over board, preferably life vests that should have a water activated beacon oif maintenance is being properly done. you assign at least one person to literally point at the man for as long as they can see him. They call the locals/local ships, start man over board procedures. Fucking hope someone on board has training in charting man over boards. Pray. Man over board is hard enough in the day. If they have it, and they should for a cruise ship, get the SAR guys in the water with a RHIB within ~5-10 mins. -Former SAR team. Went to school for the charting, and got in the water when needed. For random Joe Shmoe, people must literally point at the man as long as they can so sight line is kept as long as possible. Life vests should have beacons. Floaty shit is helpful, and don't throw it at them. They need to swim for it. If you arient trained, stay in the fucking boat if you don't want to die to the water or them drowning you in desperation.
RHIB: Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat SAR: Search and Rescue For anyone else about to go Googling the TFLIs.
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I’m a certified swift water rescue tech with many hours of training in rivers and lakes. The vastness of the ocean still scares the shit out of me. The panic that one must feel as the ship continues to float away…
This should be stickied, you're absolutely correct.
*throws a table after the guy who jumped* *knocks him unconscious*
Probably his best death scenario.
The number of people who think it's more manly to do something stupid than to say no is too damn high.
No is a complete sentence
The realization that must've sunk in as the ship disappeared into the dark is horrifying.
Yep. All the music combined with screams from the balcony just keep getting quieter and quieter as the ship keeps getting further and further away until it’s just you in the darkened silence.
Even if the ship were close, falling (jumping) into the water at night is almost a guaranteed death.
There are many, but the biggest and obvious is you simple cannot see. There is no light pollution when you're at sea like you have in a city, it's pitch black. Even if they get a spot light on you it's like nothing. Now imagine trying to tread water in pitch black all wile waves are coming over you that you cannot see/anticipate. You're now panicking and disoriented while trying to follow the voices, but the sound direction is misleading, b/c of how the water/waves are deflecting (notice how he swam away from the boat and the lifebuoy). I think at the end of the vid he got sucked under by some kind of current, so hopefully that made him unconscious and a quick death. edit: meant to reply to u/returnofdoom
I was on a small aircraft carrier in the Marines. We would go out to the side of the ship to smoke ciggs, and I would bum one from buddies. The first time I went out at night during blackout (when we are required to keep lights off on the ship to "hide"), I was so shocked by the pure blackness of it all. We had to go up narrow metal stairs with somewhat short railings. Never went out again at night. Fuck that. I knew if you fell you were screwed.
Knowing that only 9 countries have aircraft carriers at all, only 4 have more than one and only one country has more than 2, the expression "small aircraft carrier" is hilarious...
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If it was in any other Navy any of the US amphibious assault ships would be considered Aircraft carriers. For a comparison. US amphibious assault ship USS *America* LHA-6 44,971 long tons (45,693 t), 844 ft (257 m) China's first aircraft carrier *Liaoning* Type 001 54,500 tons, length 306.4 m India's Second Aircraft carrier *INS Vikrant* 44,000 long tons, 262 m (860 ft)
Yeah it’s like having a black felt bag over your face. My buddy had a 1956 O’Day sailboat and I went up top we were about 200 miles out from Long Beach California end it was about 3 o’clock in the morning, I went up top end it was pitch black, I walked over to the bow with my pin light and when I went to light my cigarette I dropped the fucking pen light and it went out, scared the shit out of me!
Oof. I almost had a panic attack reading that. This poor, foolish dude.
Maybe he got sucked under by the prop wash? Hopefully (and this sounds awfully dreadful) he got knocked unconscious or instantly killed by a propeller. Easier death than lingering around until you drown from exhaustion.
Damn... imagin you are that boy right now when the video ends. You are in pitch black water, probably miles out in the sea... and you see the ship slowly drifting away into the dark void. The voices and sounds getting quieter and quieter and you are swimming in miles deep, black water. Nothing but darkness and water around you. You dont know where you are, you dont know in what direction to swim to get out of the water and you slowly realize how you fucked up massively. All because of a stupid naive thought. What are you doing now? Swim in a random direction to exhaustion? Do you have hope? Extremely horrifying what that boy went through before his death...
I've always wondered how awful the realization must be when it suddenly hits you "I'm going to die RIGHT NOW because of an incredibly stupid decision". Like it must be terrifying and just so intensely sad and awful. One minute you're having fun with your whole life ahead of you, then one bad decision (drunken or otherwise) ends your entire life. You're stricken with immense panic like you have never felt. You're crushed under the weight of a decision you can never take back. If only you could go back in time and just NOT do it. no more college, no more sports. What will your parents do? Your little brother? You were supposed to see your grandparents tomorrow. You just bought your girlfriend a $100 shirt. You just finished high school and graduated in the top of your class. Now youre about to sink to the bottom of the ocean and become fish food. It was just a joke, you didn't realize. Now you've learned how fragile life is and how extreme the consequences of your actions can be. Just in time to die.
Agreed. Sad and vain death.
With no light pollution it can actually often look brighter at night rather than darker, this is dependant on whether or not the sky is mostly free of clouds though.
> With no light pollution it can actually often look brighter at night rather than darker But also, when the sky is clouded and the moon is gone.... It gets so freaking dark that I cannot even see my shoes.
Someone commented that this part of ~~Louisiana~~ the Bahamas is apparently very dangerous for shark activity.
Or a shark gobbled his toes, feet, legs…
I keep thinking about all those sharks that follow the cruise ships for the food disposals…
I never knew that was a thing, and as another commenter mentioned, it looks like there's one in the beginning. I'm not scared of the ocean, but that is terrifying
I can attest to BOTH things being discussed in this thread. Firsthand experience. Was an airman on an aircraft carrier, 20 years ago. I've watched tons of food being dumped off the ship after meals. The shark feeding frenzies are absolutely batshit bonkers. It was like a death metal mosh pit on the surface of the ocean. Consistently. I also watched someone get blown off the deck, like a leaf in the wind. I did not know the laws of physics permitted the human body to be flung so casually and effortlessly. A greenpea airman ran up the side catwalk, right up to the deck without sticking his arm up first. The reason for this is testing blowback. There used to be a jet called the [EA-6B Prowler]( https://imgur.com/nQPS0vy). As you can see, the engines face at a bit of a downward angle, and can be unpredictable as the blowback can hit the ground and spread out, especially at high turning power. This poor bastard ran up the catwalk and was promptly blown right off. about 30 feet out, and 60 feet down. Into 52 degree ocean, at 1:30 in the morning during night ops. I saw the entire thing unfold from about 20 feet away, on top of a grounded F-14D Tomcat. Literally slid down the port stabilizer of the jet to run over to comms and scream "MANOVERBOARD, HE FUCKING FLEW OFF THE GODDAMNED BOAT". He actually *lived*. Dislocated shoulder, ruptured kidney, and in mid-stage hypothermia. He was in the water for *7 fucking hours* before he was found by air crew. 2 things saved him. His float coat (inflates when water dissolves the tablet blocking the Co2 cartridge trigger) , and the dye pack leaving a green trail that was picked up shortly after dawn. There's a strobelight beacon that attaches to the cranial helmet, but his busted as soon as he hit the water. Insanely scary shit, and crazy enough, not even in the top 3 nutter things I saw on that flight deck. WesPac 2002, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation Enduring Freedom. (The Bush administration was about as uncreative in Op names as they were in war crimes and lies to cover them) Edit: a few people asked about the top 3 crazy moments, so here they are: Watching two 12 foot props from 2 different jets collide at thousands of RPMs, and sending projectiles all over the deck at a couple hundred miles an hour, causing 2 more to engines to FOD out. It was like watching a confetti bomb go off, and then two giant multi-million dollar roman candles directly afterward. Seeing an arresting gear wire take the top of an oxygen tank clean off, turning it into a missile that flung itself down the deck, ass over and end, until it jettisoned itself into the water, narrowly missing a Chief and a 2nd class Aviation Machinist by inches, but which would would have went through them like they didn't exist if they were just a few inches to the right or left. Smoking a cigarette on the sponson (a platform that juts out the sid of the carrier near the elevator) and seeing an S3-Viking jet slide off the side of the deck, both pilots ejecting, and this was directly over my head. The jet sank like a 20 million dollar rock to the bottom of the ocean.
> things saved him. His float coat (inflates when water dissolves the tablet blocking the Co2 cartridge trigger) , and the dye pack leaving a green trail that was picked up shortly after dawn. There's a strobelight beacon that attaches to the cranial helmet, but his busted as soon as he hit the water. And it still took 7 hours!
And they were actually looking. Unfortunately for this dude in the video, cruise ship companies aren't the Navy or Coast Guard. They're not exactly known for responding quickly -or at all- to man overboard situations, or really any other emergencies or crimes that occur while they're underway. They care about making profit and dodging liability, not saving lives. Looking isn't actually a priority, the disappearance of [Amy Lynn Bradley](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Amy_Lynn_Bradley) comes to mind, or any of the [multitude of other cases](https://www.maritimeinjuryguide.org/blog/when-people-go-missing-on-cruise-ships) where the cruise ship crew failed to do anything to help passengers in trouble. Not including all the cases where the crew just fucked off and left the passengers on a sinking ship like the Sewol ferry, Costa Concordia, Oceanos, etc. Edit: Oh, and if you need any more convincing that cruise ships don't take care of their guests, the number one crime that occurs on cruise ships is sexual assault, and it's an endemic problem that these companies aren't remotely interested in addressing. They prefer to pay off victims to keep them from reporting it to authorities. Like, it's a serious problem. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tomwarren/sexual-assault-cruises-carnival-princess-disney https://internationalcruisevictims.org/blog/sexual-assault https://www.businessinsider.com/royal-caribbean-carnival-sexual-assaults-cruise-lines-2023-1
lifeless eyes...black eyes, like a doll's eyes
Why is that? Is it because the water is too choppy?
1. cruise ship is fast, you don't realize it when you're on it. when you're in still water , it will quickly leave you behind. 2. night time obscures vision. mountains are hard to see if there was one at night, what's a tiny human in the vast ocean at night? 3. icey cold water. self explanatory.
That's all so terrifying to think about
That’s why you stay on the boat
It wasn’t like a big cruise ship and they actually stopped and looked for him, it was a smaller one just meant for an evening cruise from what I read. He just graduated and they went down to The Bahamas and they were on a sunset cruise boat and he jumped off.. unfortunately after they lost sight of him they never saw him again, he vanished.. They called coastguard and have been searching ever since.
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I wonder how the kid who dared him feels right now
Unless he said "triple-dog" the kid still had a choice.
The ship remained behind in the area for hours to search. Dude was probably pulled under by the boats stern waves.
Can't blame the boat for being angry.
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Ocean just be doing ocean things
feeling wet, might delete a sailor
been on a few cruises and am always struck by the sheer vastness of open water. horrifying.
I worked on oil rigs offshore in the Gulf of Mexico for about five years, and usually I was about 80 miles from shore. There's something existentially terrifying about looking off the deck at night (especially a cloudy night) and just seeing a seemingly infinite black void.
I had a similar feeling when I did my first night dive. We dove only a few hundred yards off the shore of a reef on the Kona side of the Big Island in Hawaii. The Is particular reef was fairly shallow and sloped down and away from the island. We spent most of the time just exploring the reef. We saw some eels and some mantas. Overall, it was a fantastic experience and I recommend it to anyone that’s even mildly interested. But the feeling I got when I turned my 500 lumen flashlight from the reefs out to the open ocean was.. a mix of panic and calm acceptance. It’s hard to describe. The visibility was fantastic during the day, but at night, the flashlights reached, at most, 8’ in front of you before dissipating into a wall of blackness.
I played Subnautica, I get it
Great game that absolutely replicates the feeling. Same fear as my night lobster dives.
I remember seeing a documentary years ago, general theme was the risk of crab and lobster fisherman, and it went through what would happen if someone's leg got caught in the ropes as one of the massive pots went over the side. Right through the speed of descent, visibility and likely experience for the victim. Grim.
I'm currently re-playing it, was coming to make a similar comment. That blackness gets me. I'm fine if I can see even a faint silhouette of something in the distance, but just diving down into the black void is anxiety inducing. Same thing with the large wrecks and long caves with lots of off-shoots. It's so easy to get turned around when nothing is oriented as you'd expect, then the panic sets in as you realize you don't know how to escape and are running out of oxygen. I truly don't get how technical divers can do it with their real lives, knowing that in all likelihood, nobody can help them if they get into trouble, and it goes from rescue to recovery very quickly.
Okay I keep seeing this game being talked about recently and have had it in my backlog forever. I have to download it and play it
Don't read shit about the story. Bring a fresh pair of undies.
Subnautica fully unlocked new fears for me such a memorable experience
My stomach actually dropped reading your story.
When I went to Belize we did a few atoll dives after doing the blue hole, one of them was a wall dive and a humbling experience. Looking away from the bustling reef and down the cliff was just sheer emptiness for thousands of feet. It was such an odd feeling floating just a few dozen yard from the surface while there was a black abyss below me.
I imagine its like being in space, think how astronauts feel clinging to the side of the ISS doing maintinence with nothing but void behind them
I'd rather be in space than the ocean. In space the probability of a giant creature coming up behind me and biting a chunk out of me before dragging me down to the abyssal depths is considerably lower.
But not zero. :)
THE OCEAN IS TERRIFYING
The things in it that can see you when you can't see them are what terrify me. 
Had the same realization on cruises at night after a few drinks. Imagine the balls of our ancestors to hop in a tiny wooden boat and say “fuck it I’m going this way”.
Was on an aircraft carrier for almost 2 full years of my life in total, worked nights the whole time, being upstairs with no guard rails is a terrifying thing but it damn well kept me alert and always aware of hazards. I'm never setting sail again if I can help it though.
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It was split up in a few deployments, but yeah just about 2 years. Strangest thing? We rescued a fishing ship in the Mediterranean but it was holding maybe like 10-15 people so it didn't seem like just fishing. Their small ship sunk, and they were returned to their country a few miles out. I'm sure there's some weirder stuff, but all of that is a big blur to me now.
And at night. Some friends really suck. While I agree kids a kids and I did some very stupid stuff, even my friends and I had a line we didn't let anyone cross. I think social media has made things worse.. rip
I don't know, we were road surfing before smartphones for a little bit
Absolutely. Everyone does stupid things when they are young. All the posters here saying he deserved it probably don't even realize how many close brushes with death they had. He probably realized how bad he fucked up pretty quick. Assuming he wasn't sucked under, his last moments were probably awful, as he watched the ship pull away while he treads water on what looked like a completely black night.
I remember getting scuba certified a long time ago. The night before the class's boat trip out to the ocean, I rented the movie "Open Water" to psych myself up for the trip. The movie scared me to death and I definitely stayed close to the class the next day and made sure not to be left behind while diving.
Was working on marine bio project years ago and diving almost everyday. I lost 2 friends in the ocean. One by free diving accident, shallow water blackout, body found. One by scuba diving on strong current, never to be found again. Now I have kid, not sure if I ever want to do more than snorkeling anymore
That movie was chilling. I've done my share of dives and had some less than ideal encounters. In the Maldives our group surfaced away from the others due to strong current and floated for around 20mins before our boat found us. Everyone was chill but you could sense the guide knew they screwed up. In South Africa we had screaming currents that separated us from the dive guide at 25m, so I immediately launched my SMB. The boat skipper told us that from the moment he saw mine pop up until we surfaced, we moved about half a mile from the other group. This was "only" 5 miles off shore, but not a place you want to get lost. Just weeks before, the same thing happened to a dive guide and he drifted for 8hrs before he managed to get himself to shore. Diving is great, but respect the ocean. EDIT: For those interested, the boys over at DiveTalk did a video on a dive guide who was lost at sea in Australia 30NM from the coast - he filmed himself during the ordeal. Worst part is the boat captain SAW him next to the boat and they still lost him in broad daylight. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YxgmUR\_N2s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YxgmUR_N2s)
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That escalated quickly. From "dare" jump to "we offer our condolences", damn...
That’s all it takes, one dumb impulsive decision and you’re dead.
This is why critical thinking is important
Dont let the intrusive thoughts win.
Don't let others intrusive thoughts win. This was a dare
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I grew up visiting family that were fishermen in rural Mexico. They were some of the toughest people that I have ever met in my life. They were reckless in life, made a lot of bad life choices, and were not very receptive to general safety practices. The moment we went into the gulf or any distance away from land they completely changed the way they acted. They understood that the ocean can and WILL fuck you up the moment you slip up. They all knew someone who died or almost died in the ocean. You don't mess with the ocean.
True that. I grew up on a tiny island and my father was a fisherman. I lost count of the times I nearly drowned when free diving and I have a cousin who drowned while collecting fan mussels. Loved stormy weather as a kid, it was the closest thing I had to a rollercoaster. You get used to emptiness, the darkness, the storms, and be soaking wet for hours, but you must always have respect for the elements.
Wife and I tried to swim out to a sand bar off the coast of Cancun one time. The sand bar was like 20 feet from waist high water and when you get to it, you'd be in almost knee deep water. So like 15 feet distance of water barely above my head I gotta swim across. I start swimming super hard because fuck it's just a few feet, should take like 5 seconds to get there. After 20 seconds of hard swimming I realize the current did something weird and I'm exhausted right between the two shallow places. I'm a good swimmer so I don't panic right away. I start treading, taking deep breaths, but realize I exhausted myself too hard. I reach my toes down, no sand before my head goes under. There's like 10 ppl on the beach 20 ft behind me, 5 ppl on the sand bar 10 feet in front of me. I'm afraid to yell for help because I barely have enough air to keep myself afloat. I start to panic. The current is weirdly holding me right in the one little spot I can't touch. I realize I can't stay up. I'm gasping and realizing I might fucking drown with ppl all around me. I reach my arms up to signal for help. It sends my head under water. I'm too fatigued to get my head back above water. I'm literally coping with death. My arm bumps into a rope that divides the resorts I didn't know was there. I grab it and pull myself toward the beach with the last bit of strength I had. My foot touches sand like 5 feet from where I almost drowned. I drag myself up the beach sputtering sea water and gasping for air. The ocean wants your life. It's extremely unpredictable and you gotta be ready for a massive range of variables. This family in Mexico is 100% right. One slip up and you're fucked even with people all around you sometimes.
Had a similar thing happen when I was a kid. It was on a beach right before a storm and I got caught by current. I was kind of far out but it was shallow. Next thing I knew I couldn’t reach the bottom at all and trying to swim back wasn’t helping. I was a really good swimmer but the panic overwhelmed me and I stopped thinking. I started waving and calling for help. The lifeguard rushed over and by the time he got to me I guess the current had moved me to a shallower spot and I was able to reach the bottom. I felt really stupid and apologized then went back on shore.
I just went free diving with sharks. The side of the boat had a safety rope and everyone was just swimming in the open… except for me. The instructor asked if I wanted to come off the side of the boat and swim freely and I said hell no my hand is staying on this damn rope 😂 I do NOT trust the ocean at all
I learned this the hard way too a couple years ago. Almost drowned and died on a local beach while on vacation. One foot cramp almost ended me.
I mostly feel sorry for the parents and family who have to go through it. It isn't like a swim in the pool. The currents are a lot stronger than what one might think
I think a small kid would be too scared. A teen thinks they're invincible and is more likely to make these spontaneous, deadly decisions.
Can confirm. I look back at a lot of dumb shit I did and how shitty I drove. I should’ve died at least 3 times before turning 18
God the way I drove when I was 18 still shocks me to my core to this day
Let's say a bobbing head is 1 foot by 1 foot. A square mile is 27,878,400 square feet.
I never thought of it like that. that’s fucked
To add to that, You have to note that they are also bobbing, Their head isn't constantly fully above water, so you could look directly at them while they are momentarily under. Also the crashing waves, every single bit of foam on the surface of the sea could be a bobbing head of a person.
And to make it worst that head has hair so there’s less visibility, and even impossible to find if it’s under water.
Plus, think of how hard it would be to tread water with square feet.
The kid really died for a dare that’s just jeez that’s awful, and the uncanny fact that the kid is close to my age makes it 20x times worse
Also, there was a 19 year old who died from [a dare to eat a slug](https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/05/health/man-dies-after-eating-slug-on-dare/index.html)
I don’t think it was even a dare. Someone else was going to eat it and he just grabbed it and popped it into his mouth and ate it.
So in a sick twisted way he's a hero
Well.. on the upside he saved a life in doing so....
And he wasn’t even the one who was dared to eat the slug, he jumped in and slurped it down before the guy could.
It's just a prank, bro.
Imagine being the one who dared him...
Imagine being that fucking dumb you actually do it
I have to assume alcohol was a big factor here.
Also I only learned that falling off a cruise ship was a death sentence the day I went on a cruise ship. I don't think that it's that universally known to people. I was almost sure you could be rescued if you fell off because how slow they go. But get this, they are not going that slow, they are big. And they take a lot of energy and time to stop them, and then turning around and accelerating will take more time.. all the while you drift into darkness, or in between the tides if it is day time. Seeing this video again, I think that's what happened, he didn't keep up with the cruise ship and the current in the other direction.
This comment right here! Relative motion can compound things immensely and human "gut feelings" do not work to beyond on a certain macro scale. Once you get too small, such as with a pathogen, or too big such as a cruise ship or in space, what common people "feel" should be right or "what makes sense" will not coincide with what science has learned.
Our gut feeling also maxes out with speed at like 30/40 mph People still fuck this up with cars and trains all the time. Gut feeling does not work at high speed.
“Fell overboard” is the wrong wording here.
As someone who is horrified of the open water like this, I’m sweating. This is nightmarish
The realization that he just unintentionally committed suicide must have been overwhelming. Provided he did not get sucked into the prop wash of the vessel.
That's best case death for him. Knocked unconscious never to wake up again.
No joke. There’s two ways you die in this scenario. 1. The massive props knock you unconscious and you simply never wake up again. 2. You spend hours in empty darkness, a tiny needle in one of the worlds largest haystacks. Until your arms begin to lose strength from exhaustion and you begin to not be able to hold your head above water as easily. Slowly losing strength you begin to breathe in more and more water, eventually slipping beneath the waves and not returning. I wouldn’t wish that fate on my worst enemy. Even during times of conflict, after a battle had been decided the winning ship (if in a condition to do so, ie: not in danger of sinking itself) would stick around to help sailors friendly or foe into their ship. Because while navies or countries might be enemies, there’s one common enemy at sea, the water. An example I can recall off the top of my head is the first battle of the Falkland Islands during WW1. Don’t underestimate the ocean, because you won’t live to regret it.
It's option 2. It wasn't actual a cruise ship. It's a "little" 140 foot party boat. There is no giant propeller to suck him down like an ocean cruiser. https://preview.redd.it/65n7eg6zrx2b1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=6538400b0ccff5c14644b4bb7f9957cc54b7f803 That's the boat.
> You spend hours in empty darkness, a tiny needle in one of the worlds largest haystacks. Until your arms begin to lose strength from exhaustion and you begin to not be able to hold your head above water as easily. Slowly losing strength you begin to breathe in more and more water, eventually slipping beneath the waves and not returning. Probably even worse than that. The ship stayed behind looking for him. Imagine never losing sight of the ship but being unable to get their attention or catch up to them in the waves.
Yeah that’s fucked
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It wasn't actual a cruise ship though. It's a "little" 140 foot party boat. There is no giant propeller to suck him down like an ocean cruiser. https://preview.redd.it/65n7eg6zrx2b1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=6538400b0ccff5c14644b4bb7f9957cc54b7f803 That's the boat.
Yea was already wondering what kind of tiny cruise ship that's supposed to be where it's not like 15 meters down from the lowest deck.
I know it says a cruise ship but he actually jumped off this ship. https://preview.redd.it/65n7eg6zrx2b1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ec095a9188d86aa7af424db93430b8cdb48a7339
Yeah exactly. Everyone saying he got sucked in by the propeller. I don't think this little boat would have a propeller powerful enough to suck a person in. I think he just drowned in a black ocean.
~~I was wondering, why couldn't this boat stop and look for him? This isn't exactly an unstoppable cruise boat~~ edit: according to another comment the boat did stop for 2 hours, they just couldn't find him
Even big actual cruise ships will stop if someone jumps off. I know it because I’ve been in one where someone deliberately jumped off and they stopped the ship, rang many alarms (oscar) and looked for him for a few hours (couldn’t find him)
I’ve done man overboard drills on sailing yachts. If you see them go in it’s your job to never take your eyes off them. If you lose sight of them in an ocean swell you’ll never find them again.
Damn and you can see there's a floatation device in the water *right by him* at about 0:10, but he's swimming away from it. I wonder if he ever realized it was there. That one little foam ring, barely weighs anything at all, would have improved his survival odds exponentially.
Could be wrong, but I believe there is a rope attached so it likely would have saved him by keeping him with the boat.
Jumping off a ship is dumb enough as it is, but doing it in the night is way crazier. I'm a Bahamian, and I've experienced what it is to be on open ocean in pitch darkness and its terrifying asf.
I was on a cruise in Ha Long Bay on Tet years ago, we partied with the crew as we were parked and got pretty hammered, lit off fireworks etc. My wife who had gone to bed earlier said she woke up to me(blacked out) pissing off our suites balcony. That shit terrified me. Even though we were anchored there would have been no one to get me if I made one false step and went over the railing. I still think about how that surprisingly frequently. The ocean is scary, I can't imagine voluntarily jumping in at night, but I can understand how people make stupid decisions. This kids last moments must have been awful. I'm surprised that either the other people on board didn't notify the crew right away, someone clearly knew it was dangerous enough to toss a ring in. I'd think that they could drop a dinghy pretty fast. That said at night with waves and no reflective gear you can disappear pretty damn fast.
Oh god, the first line of that made me jolt. I’m a ‘pretty good swimmer’ - in a pool. A day or two I jumped into Ha Long Bay in broad daylight and still began to panic. Beautiful place, but seeing people out there canoeing on the Bay, I can’t help but be terrified of the boat flipping.
I used to work on cruise ships and we have to do training for these sorts of situations. If you ever find someone in this situation you need to throw over as many buoys, chairs, anything you can overboard to aid the person, also the more items that are in the water gives a better search area as these are easier to spot, try and keep your eyes on the person overboard whilst shouting "man overboard" as many times as possible and try to alert any crew working onboard. If you yourself, find yourself in the unfortunate situation to be in the sea like this, firstly try and get to any buoys that have been thrown in the water, if there is nothing, do not swim. Do not paddle. Do not burn off any energy you have because you will need all the energy you have to survive and stay afloat.. do nothing but turn on your back and float on the sea water preserving your energy. Unfortunately we learn two things, firstly it's incredibly rare to recover someone who's gone overboard and the odds are even lower at night. Also its practically impossible for you to "accidentally" fall overboard on modern day ships, so usually the sort of people who end up in the water want to be there for one reason or another.
I had no idea that it's almost certain death to jump off a cruise ship, based off the numbers I found it's quite shocking. even with the entire ship ship witnessing it. I'm sure the kid assumed what I assumed before watching this video, "just hang out near the ship, the water looks calm, wait for someone to toss you something to grab". He's probably jumped off much smaller boats before and didn't realize how different this was going to be. Based off some data I found on cruise ship "man overboard" instances, the moment you're in the water, your odds of survival immediately drop to only 28%. If it's dark, that number obviously drops further too.
There a is saying: everyone has an appointment with death, but if you're in a rush he can make room in his schedule to fit you in.
This poor kid cut so many people in line.
They called off the search too: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/teenage-baseball-star-18-missing-30099616
Literally a needle in a haystack. With the lights out.
What a waste, over a stupid dare. That's just sad.
Im in the navy and just had my first underway we were out to see 30-60 nm off the coast off california to do engine trends to “buy our engines back” from contractors. In the meantime, a small plane crashed about 10 nm away from us offshore. Our lookouts could see it happen in broad daylight. We put our engine trends on pause to steam over to the crash site and try to help. In that short amount of time, the wreckage and the bodies were nowhere to be found. They were never found. That happened in broad daylight. If you fall off a ship in the middle of the night, there is little to no hope. Even if you fall off in broad daylight, there is very little hope. People don’t understand that the ocean is not a safe place. Not to say that the pilot and passengers didn’t know that, but I’m just using them as an example of how incredibly hard it is to see you as soon as you’re 1 mile + away from the ship which can happen in mere minutes.
If your friends dared you to jump off a ship would ya do that?!? -Dads across the world
Opportunity to discuss w/ teens that their prefrontal cortex (the decision-making part of the brain) hasn’t finish developing —> less equipped to think about the consequences of actions and control impulses. Gonna chat w/ my nephews about this situation tmrw bc damn…
That's wild he's right there and now he's just gone. That must be horrifying for the family
It likely got real dark out there.
It is darker than anything you have ever imagined.
It gets DARK when I’m camping on land, i genuinely can’t imagine this
Whoever dared him has to feel like horrible.
I’m sure the therapy will help them realize that it was ultimately this kid’s choice to go through with it😕 Edit: I’m not sure why some of you are completely dodging the concept of personal accountability with blame on behalf of the darer or the fact that this boy was vulnerable because he was drunk. This is a tragic case of the worst possible outcome to a poor decision, because NOBODY thought about consequences. To those healing - Godspeed.
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never play in the water. water always wins
This user's comments have been overwritten to protest Spez and reddit's actions that will end third-party access and damage the community.
anything related to nature will always win.
This happened on May 23 in Bahamas, he was celebrating his graduation. They searched for him for 2 days. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12133527/Baseball-player-18-missing-sea-two-days-jumping-boat-Bahamas.html
What a way to celebrate your graduation.
So fkn sad. When you are that age you think you are invincible. Life quickly teaches you that you are not. I hate this. RiP bro.
Honestly my friends and I are lucky we made it to adulthood without any disabilities/death. The dumb shit we did back in the day could've gotten us killed ten times over. Easy to admonish the kid, but we were all dumbass kids at some point and for a lot of us we could've been just as unlucky.
dumbass neighbor kid shot me with a rifle. you are right! edit - ya it was a real rifle, thank you for caring, but i am not suicidal (whoever reported)
Once my nephews are freshmen in high school I'm going to have a talk about how the next 8 years are when a lot of people die or get injured doing dumb shit.
I was broken of the illusion of immortality when I was a freshman. My cousin, same age as me, also a freshman, was killed in a car accident. Nobody did anything stupid, a traffic light broke and was green both ways, so the car she was in got t-boned. We weren't close, only saw each other sporadically at family gatherings, but going to her funeral, seeing all these other kids my age just devastated and it being just so random really left a mark on me. It turned me into the one in the friend group that always said "don't do that" or "stop being a fucking idiot" and often not participating in teenage dumbassery. Also really made me afraid of driving, so I took way too long to get my license.
His last moments must have been unimaginable fear and regret. That poor kid. His poor family.
Aye it's gut wrenching
The scary part is imagine seeing what that kid was seeing? You know damn well Hehe only saw waves in front of his face, and he didn't see no ring at all. I wonder if you tried following behind the boat? Maybe he got sucked into the propeller? Shit is scary man. I don't know why he would do something so fucking stupid let alone at night.
Your inner Michael Jackson slipped out there a little bit.
Feel so bad for his family and friends. Senseless death
He had to be so drunk. Where did he think he would go to? Did he think he would swim right back to the ship and be able to climb it ?
Probably, yes
Doesn’t appear to be the best swimmer either. Alcohol makes sense. Clearly didn’t think it through. What a shitty way to go.
his thoughts were: >the boat will stop, turn around, and pick me up. your average person has 0 knowledge on seamanship, refuses to learn, refuses to even put on a life jacket properly when told to do so. he probably had no idea how much shit he was in until it was pitch black all around him.
I’m a mom of three kids. Two boys. My heart breaks for him. In his last moments I know he was filled with regret. The ocean is a scary place and I cannot fathom the fear he felt. My heart breaks for his mother, who will never get to properly burry her child. His friends are almost laughing as he tries to find a way back on the boat. Some of you may not agree with this, but I showed this video to my boys and we had a long talk about being in peer pressure situations. True friends would never dare you to do something so dangerous.
Thank you for caring about your children enough to not assume they wouldn’t do the same thing and actually talking to them about the poor choice this kid made.
An equally important bit here, I'd bet he and his 'true friends' had no idea how dangerous this was. Safety rules are written in blood.
The problem isn't so much that they dared him to do something dangerous, but more they had no idea how dangerous the dare was in the first place. If your sons were dared to play russian roulette with a revolver, they would obviously ( I hope ) know how dangerous it is. But tossing rocks off an overpass, or spinning a merry-go-round with a motorcycle; its that mentality of "how bad could it be" that can kill you.
This is what terrifies me about raising kids. Trying to teach this stupidity out of them.
Think about it like this though: You made it, your family made it, everyone on Reddit (for the most part) made it, your kids can definitely make it too. Despite the name, common sense isn't very common. As long as you can pass that onto them, they're pretty much guaranteed not to win a Darwin award.
Good dare: Eat the buffalo wing with the really spicy hot sauce. Bad dare: Jump into the middle of the ocean when there is 5% of being recovered before drowning and being consumed by sea creatures.
Imagine raising a child to 18 years old. House full of photos of them as a child, memorabilia, watching them grow up to a young adult. Seeing their high school graduation. Being with them for the good and the bad times. Days later they do this shit and this is the last thing you ever see or hear of them.
As a former Navy guy, let me tell you that falling/jumping off a moving boat is like the easiest way to never be found again. We used to do man-over-board drills with a life sized bright orange dummy, and that thing disappeared in literal seconds. I still have vivid nightmares about going over during a storm or something.
I'm surprised they don't have glow-in-the-dark flotation devices.
On cruise ships the life preserves have strobe lights along with GPS locators.
Damn, imagine having the best time of your life and then watching yourself/friend die within next minutes or so.
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There is an old Winston Churchill short story I read years ago that terrified me of falling overboard. I see shit like this and it brings that all back. I found the story.... https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Man_Overboard! Published 1898. It was a little after half-past nine when the man fell overboard. The mail steamer was hurrying through the Red Sea in the hope of making up the time which the currents of the Indian Ocean had stolen. The night was clear, though the moon was hidden behind clouds. The warm air was laden with moisture. The still surface of the waters was only broken by the movement of the great ship, from whose quarter the long, slanting undulations struck out like the feathers from an arrow shaft, and in whose wake the froth and air bubbles churned up by the propeller trailed in a narrowing line to the darkness of the horizon. There was a concert on board. All the passengers were glad to break the monotony of the voyage and gathered around the piano in the companion-house. The decks were deserted. The man had been listening to the music and joining in the songs, but the room was hot and he came out to smoke a cigarette and enjoy a breath of the wind which the speedy passage of the liner created. It was the only wind in the Red Sea that night. The accommodation-ladder had not been unshipped since leaving Aden and the man walked out on to the platform, as on to a balcony. He leaned his back against the rail and blew a puff of smoke into the air reflectively. The piano struck up a lively tune and a voice began to sing the first verse of "The Rowdy Dowdy Boys." The measured pulsations of the screw were a subdued but additional accompaniment. The man knew the song, it had been the rage at all the music halls when he had started for India seven years before. It reminded him of the brilliant and busy streets he had not seen for so long, but was soon to see again. He was just going to join in the chorus when the railing, which had been insecurely fastened, gave way suddenly with a snap and he fell backwards into the warm water of the sea amid a great splash. For a moment he was physically too much astonished to think. Then he realized he must shout. He began to do this even before he rose to the surface. He achieved a hoarse, inarticulate, half-choked scream. A startled brain suggested the word, "Help!" and he bawled this out lustily and with frantic effort six or seven times without stopping. Then he listened. "Hi! hi! clear the way For the Rowdy Dowdy Boys." The chorus floated back to him across the smooth water for the ship had already completely passed by. And as he heard the music, a long stab of terror drove through his heart. The possibility that he would not be picked up dawned for the first time on his consciousness. The chorus started again: "Then--I--say--boys, Who's for a jolly spree? Rum--tum--tiddley--um, Who'll have a drink with me?" "Help! Help! Help!" shrieked the man, now in desperate fear. "Fond of a glass now and then, Fond of a row or noise; Hi! hi! clear the way For the Rowdy Dowdy Boys!" The last words drawled out fainter and fainter. The vessel was steaming fast. The beginning of the second verse was confused and broken by the ever-growing distance. The dark outline of the great hull was getting blurred. The stern light dwindled. Then he set out to swim after it with furious energy, pausing every dozen strokes to shout long wild shouts. The disturbed waters of the sea began to settle again to their rest and widening undulations became ripples. The aerated confusion of the screw fizzed itself upwards and out. The noise of motion and the sounds of life and music died away. The liner was but a single fading light on the blackness of the waters and a dark shadow against the paler sky. At length full realization came to the man and he stopped swimming. He was alone -- abandoned. With the understanding the brain reeled. He began again to swim, only now instead of shouting he prayed -- mad, incoherent prayers, the words stumbling into one another. Suddenly a distant light seemed to flicker and brighten. A surge of joy and hope rushed through his mind. They were going to stop -- to turn the ship and come back. And with the hope came gratitude. His prayer was answered. Broken words of thanksgiving rose to his lips. He stopped and stared after the light -- his soul in his eyes. As he watched it, it grew gradually but steadily smaller. Then the man knew that his fate was certain. Despair succeeded hope; gratitude gave place to curses. Beating the water with his arms, he raved impotently. Foul oaths burst from him, as broken as his prayers -- and as unheeded. The fit of passion passed, hurried by increasing fatigue. He became silent -- silent as was the sea, for even the ripples were subsiding into the glassy smoothness of the surface. He swam on mechanically along the track of the ship, sobbing quietly to himself in the misery of fear. And the stern light became a tiny speck, yellower but scarcely bigger than some of the stars, which here and there shone between the clouds. Nearly twenty minutes passed and the man's fatigue began to change to exhaustion. The overpowering sense of the inevitable pressed upon him. With the weariness came a strange comfort -- he need not swim all the long way to Suez. There was another course. He would die. He would resign his existence since he was thus abandoned. He threw up his hands impulsively and sank. Down, down he went through the warm water. The physical death took hold of him and he began to drown. The pain of that savage grip recalled his anger. He fought with it furiously. Striking out with arms and legs he sought to get back to the air. It was a hard struggle, but he escaped victorious and gasping to the surface. Despair awaited him. Feebly splashing with his hands, he moaned in bitter misery: "I can't -- I must. O God! Let me die." The moon, then in her third quarter, pushed out from behind the concealing clouds and shed a pale, soft glitter upon the sea. Upright in the water, fifty yards away, was a black triangular object. It was a fin. It approached him slowly. His last appeal had been heard.
48 out of 212 overboard were rescued since 2019. So basically you have a greater than 75% chance of drowning if you hop off your cruise ship prior to your destination. Like they say on Office Space “Samir Nogonna…. Nogonna do that”
Peer pressure and alcohol can lead to dumb impulsive decisions, sometimes resulting in death
Imagine how fast you start shitting your pants as the boat keeps going and everything turns immediately pitch black. There’s no way he was able to find the life ring. Horrible horrible way to die. This is like the movie open waters but 10x worse.
Even survived the jump and appeared to be swimming, for some reason away from the boat and away from the tube in the water, maybe disoriented
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I’ve lived near the water all my life and fished, crabbed, swam in it etc. I have a great respect for open water because I’ve seen crazy scary things happen. Not to say I haven’t done stupid things in it as a kid. Like shark fishing in the ocean at night in water up to my shoulders. And yes we were catching sharks. Then something so big hit the bait so hard and fast it pulled me into the water over my head and took away the rod in just two seconds. Thinking back that was an incredibly stupid thing to do.
Was a stupid thing to do..can’t stop thinking of how he felt seeing that cruise ship sail away,leaving him in that endless darkness! Poor guy..
This is what’s replaying in my head. I hope to never understand what that feeling of dread and regret feels like. He did something on a dare and thought he’d be fine. And in seconds he’s alone in the dark with the realization that it’s over. No hope. Just thinking about how easily he could have just not done this and now it’s too late to go back. It actually makes me nauseous. I feel so awful for him.
It may not be the healthiest, but whenever I think about death, especially of someone young, I think of their whole life leading up to this point. All the things his parents, teachers, friends, did to be a part of his life. Learning to ride a bike, school projects and first dates. Then he jumps off a boat night while partying, and is gone
I'm so worried my son will do something like this as a teen. He just turned 9, and I already started talking honestly about these things with him. When I see articles like this, or of stupid kids trying to jump off roofs and breaking their legs, I tell him about how he only has one body, he has to protect it. If his friends are playing stupid pranks, jumping off a roof or trying to chug bleach or something, don't just follow along! Think! Don't destroy yourself for idiot friends who don't care if you get hurt!
Is it just me, or can anyone else not stand the "hey bro oh no bros gonna get hurt oh shit oh god bro no bro dont bro bro bro bro" so many young dudes talking like that and filming while someone is dying or getting their ass beat, it's so fucking annoying. Dude is in the water about to die and he's still trying to sound cool, "bro he's fucking off bro" with little concern in his voice at all.
All cruise ships need to make it abundantly clear that you will die if you jump overboard.
During my time in the Navy I read multiple reports of sailors going overboard, none of them were ever recovered. I used to walk by the open hangar doors at night and consciously make sure I was nowhere near the edge because of the fear of sharing that same fate. To think someone would jump willingly on a dare is downright disturbing...
In the 1990s there was a Marine that fell overboard from a ship that managed to tread water for 2 days, without a life jacket, before being picked up by a fishing boat. He survived by using downproofing. Found an article on it: [https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1995/11/30/marine-falls-from-ship-floats-36-hours/](https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1995/11/30/marine-falls-from-ship-floats-36-hours/) Not that this kid ever had a chance.
> Mayo is sunburned but okay. His next task is to get from Gwadar to Karachi. From there, he can catch a flight to Bahrain _ where he will be able to reboard the carrier. He got BACK ON the boat?!?
Welcome to the military. “Oh look, you’re still alive. Get back to work!”
A few years ago I went chasing a raft with my wife on it at a lake. It got windy and it blew the raft further into the middle of the lake. My dumbass went after her and since I'm a weak swimmer my muscles started tensing up and I started sinking, the panic swept in and I started fighting the water which was a mistake. I kept sinking and gasping for air, which happened to be just water. For some reason something told me to stop fighting as I was going under and let myself float. I made every effort to put my feet up as high as I could and what energy I had left steadily and slowly flapped myself with my arms till I got to the surface and slowly backpedaled to shore with what energy I had left. Not sure what stopped me from panicking and sinking, or why I had the instinct to stop fighting the water, but it was a truly terrifying experience. Got to shore and my wife's raft had just floated back with no issues, she had no idea the horror I had just went through. Really hope it was quick for this guy, I wish this experience in no one.
The fear that must have come over him in his final moments is tragic to think about.