On Sat, 30 Apr 2005 12:10:57 -0000, Dylan Smith
wrote in
::

The only person who ultimately directly cares for us when we are solo in
an aircraft is ourselves. No one else. You are the captain of your own
soul as well as your aircraft.
You are the only person looking after yourself in that situation;
remember that. If you expect some divine being to care for you, I think
you're just looking for a grid reference.

I couldn't agree more. Here are the words of a survivor of a seven
hour swim in 59 degree water after ditching:


http://www.safetycenter.navy.mil/med...4/Survival.htm
Without a flight plan, without radio contact, and without a
flotation device, Maready started swimming west, using Orion's
Belt to guide her toward shore. The weight of her wet clothes felt
as if they were pulling her under. Deciding to swim to shore
rather than drown, Maready removed her shoes, her clothes, and
even her wris****ch, which she could feel creating drag against
the 59-degree-Atlantic current. It was 2200, and the tide was not
in her favor. Her two-mile swim to land now had tripled against
the outgoing tide. In the darkness, she barely saw her hands in
front of her face. Thoughts of South Carolina's coast being second
in the number of shark attacks only to Florida did not comfort
her, and hypothermia was beginning to attack her body.

"Gradually, my body began to shiver. As the shivers worsened, I
noticed my hands were becoming gnarled and stiff. I made myself
keep moving, forced myself to keep up the swimming movements, but,
even as I continued, I could feel my toes crossing, my feet
arching and cramping into grotesque, fixed positions. It was my
body, and what was happening to it terrified me."

Cathy Maready couldn't stop the thoughts of death from entering
her mind, but she refused to give up the will-to-live.

"I thought it might be nice if I spent a little bit of the time I
had left to say goodbye to my family and loved ones. I believe
most people in survival situations would tend to cherish these
times. For me, it was time well spent. As I was saying my
good-byes, the water around me began to warm. My whole world began
to seem warmer. It was invigorating just to think about my loved
ones. I gained new energy, and my arms began to move again, very
slowly, but still moving."

As Maready kept swimming, hallucinations of search boats, rescue
helicopters, and sea monsters started to replace the darkness and
silence of the night. She was exhausted but continued swimming,
with the hallucinations beckoning her to stop. She wanted to stop
and yell for help, but the mere thought of stopping made Maready
feel as if she would sink like a stone. She decided the next time
she would stop swimming was when someone pulled her out of the
water or when her feet touched the sand.

With what she describes as angels pulling her arms forward through
the water and a renewed faith in her heart, Maready eventually
reached shore, a grueling seven and a half hours after the crash.

"Finally, even as I mentally was preparing myself for death, I
felt it. My knees were hitting a sand bar. I knew what it was, but
I was too numb to stand. Almost ready to cry, knowing how close
the shore was, I was forced to swim around the sand bar, out into
deeper water, to reach dry land. Agonizingly, I kept going. My
faith was pushing me; it was pulling me, carrying me to shore. It
was daybreak before I made the beach. I still can hear the oyster
shells cracking under my weight. I still can see the blood flowing
from my cuts, but, at the time, I was too numb to feel a thing."

Maready was found staggering along the beach, suffering from shock
and severe hypothermia. She spent the next three days in intensive
care. When she recovered, specialists were called to review, in
amazement, her medical charts. Chemicals in her body had built up
so high from exertion they literally were off the scale. Three
days later, she was released from the hospital.



http://gosport.pensacolanewsjournal....0B5983A5.shtml
"There's just this will that we all have within us, we just go, we
just do what we've gotta do," Maready said with quiet conviction.

Maready said she kept swimming until she started feeling
disconnected from her body. "My head didn't feel like it was
attached anymore. It's a strange feeling, but I could actually
feel my body shutting down. I could feel myself dying."

That's when Maready decided she should start saying goodbye to
everybody. Suddenly her knee hit a sandbar. After swimming in the
cold water of the Atlantic Ocean for seven hours, Maready was too
weak to stand. Her ordeal was nearly over, but if she couldn't
pull herself out of the water, she would risk drowning.