06 February 2023 , 17:58
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A 69-year-old fisherman has been rescued after clinging to a plastic bottle in the open sea for more than 30 hours.
The Malaysian fisherman - named as Morris Dulin, 69 - fell into the South China Sea when his boat capsized.
All he had to cling to was a plastic jerrycan that miraculously kept him afloat for nearly a day and a half before he was found by the Royal Malaysian Navy.
He was rescued 5.5 nautical miles (10.2 kilometres) from where his boat sank off the Malaysian island of Sepanggar.
Images from the Malaysian Navy show Dulin receiving treatment after his ordeal.
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A statement released by the Royal Malaysian Navy on 26th January said they "carried out a search for a fisherman who was feared missing" in conjunction with local police.
Rescue crews help Morris Dulin walk after the miraculous recue (Newsflash)They were assisted in their search by a Scaneagle M601-7 UAS drone, the statement said.
They explained: "This drone was flown for aerial monitoring to help locate the missing victim."
The Navy said that three people had gone into the water when the ship sank but two of the survivors had managed to swim to shore to raise the alarm.
Mr Dulin was found by the Royal Malaysian Navy (Newsflash)They said that they eventually "succeeded in finding the victim at around 1pm this afternoon at a location 5 nautical miles west of Tanjung Gaya."
They said that the "victim was found clinging to a white jerrycan to help him float" and that he was found in a weakened condition.
Dulin was given an initial health check on the rescue vessel, the KD Sundang, before being handed over to the Kota Kinabalu Regional Military Hospital for further treatment.
He received medical treatment after his ordeal (Newsflash)Last year the Mirror reported on a Brit who was found clinging to a buoy after his kayak capsized was rescued by fishermen in the English Channel.
The 28-year-old kayaker had reportedly survived “for days” in the middle of the ocean after his vessel capsized while he was trying to cross the English Channel.
Rescue crews help Mr Dulin into an ambulance (Newsflash)He was left battling for his life and eventually found by the crew of cutter ship ‘De Madelaine', of the shipping company T. de Boer en Zonen from the Netherlands.
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He was only found when captain Teunis de Boer was sailing between England and France, across the channel, and noticed something out of the ordinary.