The Frontex has released pictures from the rescue operation of the Russian tourist who was drifted away in the sea while on an air mattress. The missing for 20 hours. The 55-year-old Russian national was spotted by Frontex border patrol aircraft and was rescued by the Greek Coast Guard.
She floated through several hours on Wednesday afternoon and through the night and was potted short before 11 o’ clock on Thursday morning. She needed hospital treatment for “dehydration, exposure to the sun and resulting heart problems.”
The Frontex reported about the rescue:
“On 28 June in the morning, a Slovak patrol plane deployed by Frontex in Greece was involved in a Search and Rescue operation when the Hellenic Coast Guard requested our plane to search for a missing person in the sea above Rethymno, Crete.
“At 10.40 our aircraft located the missing person, floating on an air mattress, nine nautical miles from Rethymno and one nautical mile from the coastline close to Lavris.”
“A Hellenic Coast Guard vessel was dispatched and rescued the 55 year old female who had been in the sea for about 20 hours ”
A rescue vessel brought her back to shore and she was rushed to hospital with “heart problems” and “hypothermia” after suffering from exposure and sun stroke.
Her relieved daughter Yulia, 28, a TV producer, posted on social media: “Miracles happen.”
The woman who is a medical doctor spent the night in the cold, with just her bathing suit on, amid “strong wind, occasional rain and even a small thunderstorm,” local media report.
The daughter was spending summer vacations with her parents in a hotel in Adelianos Kampos, in the north part of Rethymnon Prefecture.
The air mattress was spotted 6 nautical miles of Crete.
According to some local media, the woman fell asleep on the air mattress and when she woke up she was carried away by a strong stream so that she could not sea the beach. Neither could she be seen from the beach.
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The daughter said her mother, an ultrasound diagnostics doctor, had been “burned to ashes” by the daytime sun before the EU Frontex agency plane spotted her.
