A British teenager's SOS post on social networking site Facebook has saved his life.
The 18-year old, whose name has not been disclosed, was drowning at sea after his Laser sailing craft overturned a mile off the coast of Mevagissey, Cornwall. The incident took place on July 10, and the teen was unable to call his family as his handset was too wet to make even an emergency call. However, he was able to type the message "stranded" before the device became too wet and posted it online on Facebook.
A friend of the teen saw the SOS and informed the boy's mother who raised an alarm, which resulted in a search and rescue operation with the Brixham Coastguard being called in.
The team of rescuers found the boy in an area near Mevagissey, a mile off shore. The coastguards revealed that the teen, who was on a paddling trip, got into problems on his trip from Mevagissey to the fisherman's cove of Portmellon, which is a mile south. When his boat capsized, the terrified teen hung on to the boat and somehow managed to reach family and friends before his phone's battery drained out. The teen also attempted to swim back to shore.
"He had capsized and, because the boat was drifting, had decided to swim for Blackhead after managing to get a message onto Facebook before his phone died," said a spokesperson for Fowey lifeboat crew.
The coastguards believe that the teen who was only clad in shorts and a t-shirt was "lucky" to have been discovered.
"This young man was extremely lucky to be found when he was," revealed the coastguard's watch manager Andy Huber. "He told lifeboat crews he had been in the water for two hours and was trying to swim back to shore, even though he did not have a buoyancy aid or lifejacket on."
The teenager was transferred to an "all-weather lifeboat" and taken to the Fowey Lifeboat Station. Here an ambulance was waiting to take him to the hospital. Luckily, the ordeal has not caused the teen any harm.
The Cornish coast is infamous for its terrible 3G Internet coverage, as well as sporadic mobile phone signals. The Fowey RNLI crew admitted that being called in after SOS post on Facebook is quite "unusual."
