A German man is lucky to be alive after getting knocked overboard from a yacht and being lost at sea in New Zealand for hours.Arne Murke was sailing with his brother after being hired to deliver the sailboat from New Zealand to Brazil.
The boom broke free and knocked Murke into the sea where he was dragged along beneath the boat after his arm became entangled in a rope, he told the Herald, but he managed to break free after about 20 seconds.
"I was floating in the water not wearing any life jacket. Just my t-shirt, my jeans, that was all," he said.
"My brother started directly to get me but the swell was like three meters. He threw a life jacket with a rope overboard. I couldn't reach that, it was already too far away.
The 30-year-old spent close to four hours in the water before being rescued by a helicopter, but he might not have been so lucky if he hadn’t remembered a survival trick in his moment of need. Murke wasn’t wearing a life jacket, but he recalled something Navy SEALS do and used his jeans to make an improvised life vest. He tied knots in the legs and blew air inside the inflated jeans, creating a makeshift life preserver. And it did the trick! Here's a video from the Seals on how they do it.
The rescue helicopter service posted a video of the save on their Facebook page,writing, “He is so incredibly lucky to be alive.” And Murke knows it’s true. “Without the jeans, I wouldn’t be here today,” he says. “They were really the thing that saved me.”