Not only is Leonardo DiCaprio helping to save and heal the planet through his environmental organization Earth Alliance, but the acclaimed actor is also rescuing strangers lost at sea. Although the frightening event took place on December 30, news of the rescue only surfaced in the media on Thursday.
A 24-year-old Club Med yacht crewman was reportedly intoxicated when he fell overboard near the Caribbean island of St. Martin. Realizing that the crewman was gone, the captain of the ship placed "panicked emergency messages" to any nearby vessels. There was another yacht near St. Barts with at least two guests on board: 45-year-old Leonardo DiCaprio with his 22-year-old model girlfriend, Camila Morrone.
DiCaprio agreed to use his ship to search for the young crewman, and after treading water for 11 hours, the exhausted man was found. By the time DiCaprio and his team came across the man, he'd drifted out about 30 miles away from where he initially went overboard. It's reported that the unnamed man was close to drowning and severely dehydrated. He thought he was hallucinating when he saw that a movie star was his rescuer.
“Leonardo played a blinding role in his own real-life Hollywood movie," a source told The Sun. "[DiCaprio's crew] were the only responders, and his only chance of survival, despite being hours away. The ‘man overboard’ was minutes from drowning when he was found. The captain put the man's chances of survival at one in a billion - like winning the lottery twice.”
"I should have died," the man said, according to CBS News.