Chinese Businessman Survives 6 Days Adrift at Sea After Slipping on Fruit Peel

A 39-year-old businessman from Guangxi who fell into the sea while walking along a waterfront in Haikou, south China's Hainan Province, has been rescued after drifting for six days and six nights without any survival gear, sustained only by sheer willpower and instinct, The Paper reported yesterday.

Qin Jianping, a native of Guilin City, was on a business trip in Guangdong in late May and decided to visit Hainan for leisure. On the evening of May 27, he drove to the coast in Haikou for a walk. While talking business on the phone with a friend along a seawall, he strayed from the tourist area, stepped on a piece of discarded fruit peel, and plunged into the water.

At first, Qin hoped a patrol boat would spot him. But when he tried to swim against the current, waves pushed him farther out. Within moments, the coastline vanished. Exhausted and disoriented, he realized that swimming in the ocean was nothing like swimming in a river.

"The more I swam, the more the water pushed me back," Qin later recalled. He attempted to float on his back to conserve energy, but seawater kept filling his mouth and nose. Instead, he adopted an upright treading posture, moving his limbs in a rhythm mimicking his heartbeat to stay afloat.

As night fell, he told himself: "As long as I can tread water and don't panic into swallowing seawater, it's actually hard to sink."

Over the next two days, Qin spotted several vessels – a coast guard ship and a jet ski – but they were hundreds of meters away, and every attempt to reach them failed. He observed the ocean's patterns: calmer winds by day but hidden undercurrents; the tide reversing at dawn, pushing him in new directions. He tried to follow what he thought was a shoreward flow, but encountered rip currents that dragged him back to sea.

Desperation and will

By the third day, his strength waned. He saw a large passenger ferry, but the wake it created blocked him from view as he waved his underwear in a frantic bid for attention. No one saw him.

For two full days, no ship passed. The cold was unbearable. To fight hypothermia, he broke his own rule and began drinking seawater – then curled up to feel the warmth of his own urine, using it to stave off the chill.

On the evening of the third day, he spotted a floating marker buoy, about 2 to 3 meters in diameter, with plastic pipes and a lamp. Fighting the waves, he managed to climb onto it and fell asleep from sheer exhaustion, only to tumble back into the water when he unconsciously let go of the pipes in his sleep.

By the fifth day, he had no strength left to swim. He spotted another buoy with ropes attached. Grasping the ropes, he tore his water-softened skin on the rough fibers, unable to climb aboard.

Hunger drove him to peel seaweed off the buoy's submerged side and catch tiny crabs hiding among them – first two dozen, then another forty or fifty from a second buoy. He chewed them raw, though his mouth was already raw and swollen from days in saltwater.

"I told myself, I can't just leave everything behind – no word to my parents, my wife, my child, my friends," Qin said. "Unless I had no strength left at all, I had to fight."

On the sixth night, bioluminescent jellyfish appeared, their stinging tentacles latching onto his body. He tore them off, enduring the burning pain as he drifted in and out of consciousness.

On the morning of June 2, two fishermen from Chengmai County heard a faint gasping sound while passing in their boat. They pulled a nearly unconscious, blackened figure aboard. Qin's armpits were severely chafed and infected, but he felt no pain.

The fishermen wrapped him in thick clothes as he shivered uncontrollably. Their boat took 1.5 hours to reach shore – some 60 kilometers by land from where he had fallen into the sea.

Qin was admitted to intensive care and later moved to a regular ward. He was discharged to return to Guangxi on June 7. By June 10, he was peeling dead skin from his body and telling reporters, "I'm not a patient."

Using his wife's phone – his own had been lost at sea – he has already resumed managing his business and paying his workers.