Speck in the Sea 2

In the dead of night, some 40 miles off the coast of Montauk, New York, lobster fisherman John Aldrich accidentally fell off the back deck of his boat as his fishing partner and the rest of the crew unknowingly slept. The boat, on autopilot, continued forward leaving Aldrich treading water in shark infested waters. " I end up just about to sink and I realized my boots are very buoyant. I am just about ready to drown because I exerted so much energy being so frightened, so fast. I grab my boots, take one boot out, take the water out of it and create an air pocket, do that with the other boot, and I put one under each arm. That was a game changer which gave me time to think. I assessed what was going on and was still freaking out completely thinking today is the day you are going to die. Do you accept that or do you fight to stay alive? Knowing that nobody knows I am missing. There was some mention of birds attacking you. The second I fell into the water, these storm petchels started dive bombing me and pecking at my head. This was immediate like they were waiting for me. So I said to myself, you just have to stay alive till daylight, and I repeated that again and again. A couple of sharks came up to me during the night, checking me out, and I basically had to push them out of my head, because I was going to freak out."

The fact that you've been hearing John tell the story means that there was a happy ending. He managed to stay afloat through the rest of the night and come morning he was discovered and rescued by a helicopter crew.