After being swept out to sea while paddle surfing at an Algarve beach for 22 hours by an unforeseen surge of wind, a young girl is miraculously saved by container ship personnel in the Atlantic Ocean 48 kilometres off the coast of Portugal.
According to The Metro, Erica Vicente, 17, was found in the Atlantic Ocean last week after clinging to her board for dear life when a huge wind gust took her out to sea. Erica had been paddling along the coastline when she was suddenly swept out by strong winds near Monte Gordo in Portugal's Algarve region. A huge search and rescue operation was launched to find the teenager, but they had no luck.
Watch the rescue operation here:
In a statement, the Portuguese Air Force mentioned, at the end of the afternoon of this Sunday, April 16, a merchant ship that was circulating along the Algarve coast spotted the young woman and recovered her from the water. Emergency services were immediately activated, and an Air Force EH-101 Merlin helicopter was activated to the location, in order to rescue the young woman and thus forward her to a hospital unit.
Erica Vicente is now recovering at the Faro Hospital in the Algarve's capital, Faro.
"She is fine, stable, and she is not dehydrated," clinic director Horacio Guerreiro said.
"At this stage, the sensitive thing is to see if her kidney function can be maintained, because with hydration there can be problems in terms of brain function, because sometimes if you force the intake of liquids, there may be situations of cerebral oedema, but we are not predicting that," he said.
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