Deptford woman safe after being adrift in Caribbean Sea for 16 hours
By South Jersey Times
A 20-year-old Deptford Township woman spent 16 hours in the Caribbean Sea after drifting too far from shore, according to NBC 10 Philadelphia.
Heather Barnes was in the Cayos Cochinos islands on the north shore of Honduras. Aiming to be a marine biologist, she’d been there for three weeks with fellow students from the New College of Florida. Friday was the last day of the trip, but she couldn’t sleep at 4 a.m., she put on her wetsuit and flippers.”
“I went to collect coral samples,” she wrote after the incident on her Facebook page. “I started cramping in my stomach and leg and get pushed out by the currents waaayy out,” she wrote. “I try to stay in the same spot thinking people will search for me soon, but after two hours I still didn’t see anyone.
“I realize if I’m going to make it I have to swim back myself, so 16 hours after I had started, and many blisters and sunburn, jellyfish stings, and hallucinations from dehydration, I made it to Lion’s head on our island and collapsed on the shore where two locals carried me and gave me water and kayaked me back to the resort where people poured from every building and hugged and kissed me.
“Two national governments, coast guards, scuba divers, kayakers, and locals on all the islands (I’m sure I’m missing some) were looking for me (unfortunately in the other direction) But regardless, I’m safe, well loved, and ready to take a break from the beach for a while.”
While Barnes was in the water, trip officials realized she was missing. Eight hours after Barnes went missing, her mother, Jennifer Dukelow, of Roseberry Court in Deptford, got a phone call.
Barnes was able to speak to her mother by phone at about 10 p.m. Friday. The Deptford High School graduate is back in Florida.
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