Pensioner Tried To Swim To A Cruise Liner When It Left Port Without Her (tr)

Daily Mail ^ | Mar 28, 2016 | Gerard Couzens and Euan McLelland

[Ray76]

A British holidaymaker has been rescued from the Atlantic after apparently trying to swim to her cruise liner when it left port without her.

Susan Brown, 65, was pulled from the ice-cold waters in the early hours of Sunday with severe hypothermia after more than four hours swimming a third of a mile out to sea in the hope of making it to her ship, the Marco Polo.

[mountn man]

[oh8eleven]

I think that depends on the temp of the water.
It does but the article did say, "Susan Brown, 65, was pulled from the ice-cold waters."
I guess my point is that this article isn't very well written ... how many 65 y/o women can even swim for one hour, let alone four?

[grania]

How many 65 year old women can even swim for one hour, let alone four

Oh, please. I'm 70. Lots of us could. Back in the day we learned relaxing distance swim strokes, and how to tread water if we needed to rest. It's unusual, for sure, but cruisers can be kind of weird sometimes.

As far as the cold? Depends on how cold and her weight.

[B Knotts]

[KevinB]

Pity her husband......

Stedman

[PGR88]

One wonders how such a person survived to 65 years old?

[nevergore]

Obviously she’s one tough old bird......

[elcid1970]

I always pitied Hyacinth’s husband.

“RICHARD!!”

[hal ogen]

Can you spell “stupid”?

[driftdiver]

The Marco Polo

[hanamizu]

I doubt she’d survive very long if the water was truly “ice-cold”. The problem with hypothermia is that your body is trying to raise the temperature of the ocean to 98.6 F. If the water is 80 degrees it will take a long time for your body to fail, but it will have to fail. The colder the water, the shorter the time. While swimming does generate more heat, moving through the water makes you give up heat faster.

If the water is really ice-cold—low 30s, survival time is measured in minutes.

[onedoug]

A third of a mile?

[jmacusa]

What kind of drug would he have used?

[longfellow]

That’s what I thought, who was it Ester Williams?

[rstrahan]

So she swims, maybe, 3 mph. Cruise ship, 15-20 knots. Uh, she had to be drunk.

[longfellow]

I’d put my money on stupid.

[Axenolith]

Dude, all bets are off if a 65 year old woman makes it that far for that long without even ditching her bag.

[JimRed]

Tough old bird.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

I was on a cruise back in 1988. The boat left one of the ports and some passengers came racing down the pier in a taxi furiously waving (obviously to no effect).

They chartered a local boat who motored them out to the cruise ship. When they reached the cruise ship the crew opened sort of a pod bay door near the water line and they were able to clamber aboard.

I caught the whole thing with a series of photos (pre-digital of course). Very interesting sequence of events.

[Albion Wilde]

Cruz supporter.