Spanish diver rescued after three hours lost at sea in KZN

After being lost at sea for more than three hours, a Spanish diver who went missing at a reef in KwaZulu-Natal had an emotional reunion with her fellow divers.

The 59-year-old woman was on a dive tour at Protea Banks, offshore of Port Shepstone, before she was reported missing at around 9am on Wednesday morning.

According to the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI), its Shelly Beach duty crew were activated by Shelly Beach tower control following reports from a dive charter vessel of a female diver missing.

Search for missing diver

This comes after the alarm was raised by two dive charter boats that were engaged in the recreational charter dive, and they initiated a search.

After the reports came in, several sea rescue services and private charters responded swiftly and cooperated in a search and rescue operation.

This included the NSRI crews and their rescue vehicles from the NSRI Shelly Beach station 20 and NSRI Port Edward station 32; the South African Police Service’s (Saps) Search and Rescue; the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC); the Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA); two charter fishing vessels; Telkom Maritime Radio Services; and Margate Air Traffic Control (ATC).

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The NSRI said Telkom Maritime Radio Services provided assistance with maritime VHF communications and issued an all-ships alert to warn nearby vessels to be on the lookout.

To guide the search for deployed rescue resources, duty controllers from the NSRI Emergency Operations Centre (EOC), NSRI operations headquarters, NSRI Durban, NSRI Shelly Beach, and NSRI Port Edward additionally used advanced technology to create coordinated sweeping line search patterns.

At around 12.19 pm, the rescue crew on the TNPA Transnet One helicopter noticed the woman frantically waving her arms in 4-to-5-meter wave swells and strong North Easterly winds.

Adrift at sea for over three hours

“The lady had been adrift for over three hours. She was located nine nautical miles from where she had gone missing, and she was five nautical miles offshore of Trafalgar,” the NSRI said.

The two NSRI rescue crafts were diverted from their search positions to respond towards the helicopter.

The NSRI added that the helicopter hovered above the woman, and after she indicated to the crew that she was not injured, it was decided that the operation would wait for one of the nearby NSRI rescue crafts to arrive.

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“The helicopter remained above the lady until NSRI rescue craft arrived at the scene where the lady was rescued onto the rescue craft Spirit of Dawn,” the NSRI said.

“Once safely onboard, the NSRI rescue craft found her to be relieved to be rescued, in good spirits, and not injured.”

The dive was eventually brought back to NSRI Shelly Beach, where she was reunited with her fellow divers in an emotional reunion.

Emotional reunion

The casualty diver appeared to have surfaced away from the dive boat and out of sight before the woman started to drift farther away, according to the NSRI.

The NSRI commended the swift response and cooperation between all services and private charters and the assistance from the TNPA Transnet One helicopter for the successful search and rescue operation.