CAPE TOWN - A near-death experience on New Year's Eve saw 59-year-old Sedick Floris from Hanover Park falling out of his boat in rough seas near Kommetjie and being swept out to sea, leaving his young son and friends stranded on board.
In a miraculous turn of events, two local divers from Ocean View spotted him floating in the water and rushed to his rescue, pulling him and the boat to shore.
“The experience has taught me to appreciate life because it can be taken away in one second. I never thought that would happen to me. We had serviced the boat and everything was fine,” Floris said.
The father of 13 said that when they went out on the water, conditions were calm.
“For 10 minutes we drove (the boat) and there were no rocks, the water was calm. I had my 10-year-old son with me and my friend’s two sons, aged 24 and 20, as well as a friend of theirs.
“We were having fun, making jokes and listening to music then we turned around to head back to shore, that’s when we got caught in a cross swell. The force of the water turned the boat on its side, and in trying to turn it back up, the steering broke off and I got flung off the boat. The water was rough because we were in the swell. I was pushed right down for 20 metres.”
“When my head came out I could breathe again, but I still panicked. Then I tried swimming back to the boat but I got tired, so the best thing for me was to get on my back and just go with the waves. Meanwhile, the boys kept trying to make 360 [degree] turns to come back to me, but the waves made it challenging.
They then threw him a ring buoy, which he caught and held onto.
“Two divers on the rocks, private guys, locals from Ocean View, one of them a Rastafarian, saw what happened and they swam to us. From a distance I could hear one shouting just keep calm, wait for me.
“When he reached me he put his hand in the rope of the tube while the other diver went to the back of the boat. We then also swam to the boat where I held on and the man who saved me basically pulled the boat back to shore.
“I am so grateful to God and those heroes who I don’t know at all, but I owe them my life.”
He said he planned to find the men, as he remembered them vividly, to once again thank them.
Cape Times