1 Evening’s Events Were Hazy
On Friday, Grimes told Good Morning America that he didn’t remember falling from the cruise ship and doesn’t know how he ended up in the water. He said he lost consciousness and came to the water. Grimes said he’d had drinks on board the ship but wasn’t drunk. His sister said they were in the ship’s bar on Thanksgiving eve before Grimes left to find a restroom at around 11 p.m., an event Grimes doesn’t remember.  2 “All I Could See Was a Fin”
Grimes may have treaded water for more than 15 hours before he was rescued. He told GMA that he focused on staying afloat and was “dead set on making it out of there … I was never accepting that this is it—this is going to be the end of my life.” As he battled fatigue, he saw some sort of animal in the water. “It came up on me really quick,” he said. “And I went under, and I could see it. And it wasn’t a shark, I don’t believe. But it had more like a flat mouth, and it came up and bumped one of my legs, and I kicked it with the other leg. It scared me, not knowing what it was … all I could see was a fin.” Coast Guard officials said bull sharks and blacktip sharks are common in that area of the Gulf of Mexico. 3 Coast Guard Sends Helicopter
Grimes’ family reported him missing around noon on Thanksgiving. In the water, which was about 70 degrees, Grimes “started getting colder—at that time, I thought, you know, ‘How much longer am I going to have to be out here?’” he said. Grimes eventually saw lights from a tanker ship and swam toward it, he told ABC. That ship’s crew saw him around 8:25 p.m. and alerted the Coast Guard, which sent a helicopter to pull him from the water.  4 “I Don’t Have Any Clothes On”
The rescuers found Grimes struggling in the water, waving and trying to keep his head above the surface. “The first thing I actually told (the Coast Guard rescuer) was, ‘I don’t have any clothes on,’ because I didn’t. I … stripped out of everything,” Grimes told GMA. “He said, ‘That’s fine.’ … I was just thinking, ‘Thank you. You are like a guardian angel coming down for me.’” 5 Another Cruise Not Out of the Question ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb When the helicopter crew lifted Grimes out of the water, he was in shock, had mild hypothermia, and was dehydrated, Lt. Gross told the New York Times. But he was in stable condition and only briefly hospitalized. Even after his ordeal, Grimes said he would still consider boarding another ship. “I might not get within 10 foot of the rails, but I definitely would be open to go on another cruise, because I really didn’t get to go on this one,” he told Good Morning America.