Woman, 23, who fell 60ft overboard a ferry says she had accepted she was ‘going to die’

A woman who fell 60ft overboard while travelling on a ferry has revealed she had fully accepted she was ‘going to die’ and ‘would never be found.’ 

In last night’s episode of Channel 4’s Nightmare Cruises: Going Overboard, Jenny Anderson, told how she was 23 when she was on a celebratory trip after her university graduation almost turned into tragedy.      

‘I remember standing on the deck with the railings in front of me, looking out at the sea,’ explained Jenny, who was travelling from Newcastle to Amsterdam. 

‘The next thing I knew I was in the water and already the ferry is…lights in the distance. It was an overwhelming feeling of being in big trouble.’  

The presenter went on to question whether she’d had too much to drink considering she was a student in Newcastle, had graduated, and was on a boat with a duty free shop.

‘I had a drink but I will admit that, but I know for a fact if I’d had too much I wouldn’t be sat here now,’ explained Jenny. ‘There’s no way I could’ve survived that experience if I was drunk.’

The 60ft fall alone could’ve killed Jenny, while the water temperate too, was potentially lethal. 

Jenny though, did survive, and what followed was the most distressing half hour of her life as she found herself cold and alone, 20 miles off the Yorkshire coast. 

‘I could just see the lights of the ferry although that disappeared after a while,’ she recalled. ‘I was on my own and didn’t know whether the ferry would come back and find me. I was definitely afraid for my life.’  

‘I was upset, I was crying, I was shouting, I was screaming. I kept trying to stay above the water and I did get to the point where I had fully accepted: “This is it, I’m going to die. I will never be found.’

She continued: ‘I was truly on my own, in the dark, in a terrible situation. It wasn’t going to be easy or likely that I was going to get out of it.’

‘It was about, “How do I make this OK? I’m not just going to stay here and let it happen. I’ll fight to the end.” It was almost like pick a direction in the hope that eventually, that becomes shoreline or coast.’

‘Towards the end I wasn’t necessarily swimming, I was just not drowning. It was becoming a real effort to just stay alive.’

Crucially, Jenny, whose terrifying ordeal has since made her wary as something as tranquil as her local boating lake, had been seen falling into the water.

‘The people I was with alerted the captain and people onboard the ferry and they managed to backtrack as close a route as possible to the route they had come to try and find me,’ she said. 

‘They heard me first, a lifeboat was sent out. They did several trips around trying to look for me, They were about to give up, but thought they’d give it one more go, and they found me.’

Jenny was airlifted to hospital semi-conscious after being in the minute for thirty minutes.