Orphan girl dangerous sea life still remembers

Accidentally fell into the sea and wrecked the drilling platform

In the middle of the night on September 13, 2002, on the choppy Gulf of Mexico, a passenger ship bound for Havana from Veracruz on the east coast of Mexico was sailing at full speed on the dark sea. Linda, a 28-year-old single female passenger, took a boat to Havana to control her husband Kay, who has been in the pharmaceutical business in Cuba for many years. Linda deliberately did not notify her before leaving, and she wanted to surprise her husband: 3 days ago, the doctor confirmed that she was pregnant.

At about 1 o'clock in the morning, Linda felt that the cabin was too stuffy, so she went to the deck to get some fresh air. She usually likes to watch the white phosphorescent track behind the ship and came to the stern, greedily admiring the rolling stream on the sea. Suddenly, a strong feeling of vomiting came up again, and it was too late for Linda to go back to the bathroom. She hurriedly leaned out to the sea to vomit, but didn't realize that because she was too tall, the guardrail of the ship was only next to her lower abdomen. When she vomited with gold stars in her eyes, she suddenly lost her center of gravity and fell out of the railing. Linda fell into the icy sea without even screaming.

"Help!" Linda, who was very good at water, instinctively jumped out of the sea and shouted for help to the rapidly leaving ship. However, the ship seemed to be in a deep sleep, and no one paid attention to her call for help.

The current stirred by the propeller violently hit Linda's body. Linda stepped on the water desperately, raising her head as high as possible to avoid being choked by the turbulent ship current. The sea that had made her happy a minute ago turned into a blink of an eye. The beast that was about to engulf her, she watched helplessly as the ship got farther and farther away from her.

After a few minutes, the sound of the ship's engine completely disappeared. Only the rhythmic beating of the waves remained on the sea shrouded in night. Linda, who had gradually calmed down from her panic, stopped calling for help in vain, and she swam mechanically on the sea.

In the vast sea, she didn't know which direction to swim. According to her estimation, the location where she fell into the sea was at least 100 nautical miles from the coast. It was impossible to swim ashore. The only thing she could do now was to save her physical strength and persevere until After dawn, see if you can be rescued by passing ships.

The stars twinkled in the night sky, and Linda, who was drifting alone in the icy waters, fought the waves with tenacious will. In exchange for other women, she may have long been overwhelmed by the fear and despair after falling into the sea, but Linda went to sea with her father's shrimp boat many times since she was a child, experienced thrilling sea storms, and developed a tenacious character. At this time, she has only one belief: support until dawn!

The sky gradually turned white, and Linda began to search the sea. She expected a boat, even a small boat, to suddenly appear on the sea. However, until dawn, not even a piece of wood appeared on the sea. It was cloudy, and Linda couldn't judge the time based on the position of the sun, but felt that the time had passed so long.

It was about noon, when Linda was disheartened, she was pleasantly surprised to find the silhouette of a sea boat in the sea about 1 nautical mile ahead. Linda rubbed her eyes: Yes, it was indeed a trawler! Linda swam hard towards the boat and shouted for help. However, due to the headwind, her cries could not be heard at all. Despite her full pursuit, the fishing boat was getting farther and farther away from her. Looking at the open sea, an exhausted Linda was so frustrated that she realized that even if there were another boat at sea, her chances of being rescued were slim.

In the afternoon, a typhoon blew on the sea, and the previous swell turned into a monstrous wave in an instant. In the angry sea, Linda was sometimes pushed to the top of the wave, and sometimes fell into the trough. The sea rushed into her nose and poured straight into her stomach., Linda was choked and coughed and gasped, and another huge wave hit, and she was pressed to the bottom, almost suffocating.

When Linda was rolled out of the sea again, she was dizzy and desperate. She couldn't believe her eyes: an oil rig appeared on the stormy sea!

The dying Linda seemed to have been injected with a shot in the arm. She struggled to swim towards the "life-saving platform" that God gave her. After struggling in the sea for nearly 16 hours, Linda climbed onto the oil rig with the last ounce of strength..

Isolated and helpless to challenge an existential crisis

Mexico is rich in undersea oil resources, and there are many offshore oil rigs distributed in the country's territorial waters. Linda thought it was a drilling rig in use, however, fate seemed to test her on purpose: the platform was empty. The doors and windows of the lounge and storage room were rusted, and there was no communication equipment on the rig. This was apparently an abandoned drilling rig, and the fire of hope Linda had just ignited was extinguished again.

In addition to a few empty beds, there is also a tool box in the lounge of more than ten square meters. A tea jar was buttoned in a washbasin. Fortunately, there was a blanket on one bed. A hungry Linda accidentally found a bag of moldy beef jerky, a bag of dried fish slices and a small bottle of mineral water at the bottom of the cabinet in the storage room! At that moment, Linda was grateful from the bottom of her heart to the people who had worked on this drilling rig.

Night fell. Linda ate a few slices of beef jerky, drank two sips of water, and lay on the iron bed wrapped in a blanket. Tired and sleepy, she temporarily forgot her situation, and soon fell asleep groggy.

When she woke up again, it was the next afternoon. The salty sea breeze made her suddenly remember that she was trapped on an "island" in the isolated sea. She got up quickly and came to the platform. The sun was high, the sea was sparkling, and from time to time fish jumped out of the water, and Linda blamed herself for getting up too late. "Maybe a boat has passed by here after dawn," she muttered to herself.

For the next day, Linda stood on the platform like a statue, and she looked at the sea motionless. When it got dark, Linda, who was hungry and thirsty, ate a few slices of beef jerky and drank two sips of mineral water. Although the surface of the jerky was moldy, she still chewed with relish. Linda carefully calculated that this package of jerky would last her for 3 days. In 3 days, there should be a boat passing by the nearby sea.

It didn't take long for Linda's stomach to growl with hunger. However, what was more uncomfortable than hunger was thirst. She was reluctant to drink mineral water, but the remaining mineral water could only last for 3 days at most. After 3 days, if she was still trapped on this drilling platform, she would face an existential crisis of lack of food and water. Linda didn't want to think any further, an ominous omen made her shiver. This night, Linda almost stayed up all night.

At dawn on the third day, Linda came to the platform early. From the rising of the sun until the sunset, her eyes never left the sea. However, except for a few huge whales that made her delusional for a while, the boat she was looking forward to never appeared.

By the evening of the fifth day, Linda was dizzy due to severe dehydration in her body, and she faced a severe existential crisis. If she doesn't get fresh water, she can last up to 48 hours.

The shadow of death reminded her of her relatives: her husband Kay, and her father. Suddenly, when she was a child, the scene of her father drinking fish blood wine and praying to the sea god to bless her peace came to her mind. Linda's eyes suddenly lit up: Drink fish blood! Fish blood can replenish the body's water! She quickly found pliers and wire from the toolbox, and soon made a pair of fishing hooks. Linda used dried fish slices as bait. Linda, who has been fishing for shrimp since she was a child, caught a one-kilogram fish from the sea under the platform without much effort.

Perhaps it was the fish blood and sashimi that replenished the water and heat needed by the body, and Linda felt that her body had regained its vitality. The dawn of survival brought her a touch of comfort, but her mood was not relaxed. As the twilight slowly rose at the junction of the sea and the sky, Linda's heart was as heavy as lead. She silently asked in her heart: How long are you going to stay on the drilling platform in the depths of the sea?