Rescuers Recall ‘Incredible Coincidence’ That Led to Finding Child Shipwreck Survivor [Video]

A search and rescue team may have missed an 11-year-old shipwreck survivor had it not been for what they called an “incredible coincidence.”

“It was an incredible coincidence that we heard the child’s voice despite the engine running,” skipper Matthias Wiedenlübbert said in a press release on Wednesday, Dec. 11, while discussing the discovery. Wiedenlübbert works with CompassCollective, a German charitable organization that performs sea rescue missions.

Their metal boat carrying migrants had set off from Sfax, Tunisia, and sank off the coast of Lampedusa in Italy.

CompassCollective said the child was “probably the only one of the 45 people on board to survive the storm that lasted several days in the central Mediterranean.”  She had been adrift at sea for three days.

“Of course we looked for other survivors. But after the storm that lasted for days with over 23 knots and …