With a Single Oar and Sheer Willpower, California Woman Survives 15 Hours Alone in the Pacific Ocean

A woman was rescued from the Monterey Bay off the coast of California Wednesday morning after spending 15 hours alone in the water with only a life jacket, an oar and her own willpower to carry her through.

The punctured and almost completely flooded raft was no help to the woman who survived the night alone in the Pacific Ocean. (Image source: KPIX-TV)

“This woman survived on her own all night,” Monterey City Fire Department Capt. Barry Perkins told KPIX-TV. “It’s probably very lonely, psychologically stressful situation to be out there, but she maintained the will to survive and the fact that she had a life jacket on helped ensure her survival.”

The woman was hypothermic by the time the Coast Guard arrived to rescue her, after she was spotted by two fishermen who didn't have the strength to bring her up into their boat.

It appears that she became stranded when the motor of her inflatable raft fell and punctured the boat, leaving it 80 percent flooded. She is thought to have been in the open water from 6:30 p.m. until 9:30 a.m.

“From the looks of her skin, she still had some red in her and stuff, so she must have been swimming, fighting you know? She said she had flares, but it was really foggy last night,” Joe Davi, a deckhand, told the news station of the woman he saw Wednesday.

Watch KPIX's report:

“She was just too cold to react to anything. She was just, ‘I’m cold,’” fisherman Mike Ricketts told KPIX.

The San Diego woman, who was not identified by name, is expected to be released from the hospital Friday, according to the Monterey Herald.

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Featured image via Shutterstock.