The ‘Salaminomachos’ pull the four-year-old girl out of the water without difficulties thanks to the sea current and she was unharmed

The surprise of crew and travellers on the Salaminomachos ferry that crossed the Greek waters was enormous. Last Monday, as this boat approached the Greek port of Antirrio, its captain received an alert: a four-year-old girl bathing on a nearby beach with her family had been swept away almost 500-meter by the sea current while riding a unicorn-shaped inflatable float.

The ferry, which was loaded with travellers, warned by the Coast Guard immediately went in search of the minor. “The port authority had informed us that there was a girl with an inflatable toy that had been swept away by the current. I found her and went straight out to rescue her,” explained Salaminomachos captain Grigoris Karnesis in statements collected by local media.

Karnesis explained that despite the alarming situation since he had to manoeuvre the boat to place it in a position that would allow the waves not to knock the girl down, it was an easy rescue. Several members of the Salaminomachos crew prepared life jackets and a rope and it only took the tide to bring her up to the ship’s ramp so that, by holding her hands, they would bring her on board.

“The girl was hooked to the inflatable, had meddled with the unicorn and at first it was not even visible,” Karmesis said after the event. The captain assures that although everything went well, at the time of the rescue the little girl did not speak, she was in a state of ‘shock’. Her mother was also very upset, with whom she met a few minutes after boarding the ferry, already in the port of Antirrio. “The impact was enormous for both of them,” says Karnesis.