Man found safe after spending Christmas night floating on broken-down jet ski

A jet skier who was reported missing at Lake Hume on the Victoria-New South Wales border in Australia has been found safe and well. Police said 28-year-old Sean Devlin from Albury was located at about 6:30am on Friday along with his broken-down jet ski.  A search had resumed on Friday morning after he was reported missing by friends on Thursday about 8:00pm.

Acting Sergeant Matt Henderson from Victorian Water Police said the man spent the night alone on the lake. "Overnight this guy has been floating out in the middle of Lake Hume off Kookaburra Point, he stayed with his ski and as a result he was spotted by searchers on and collected by the coast guard," he said.



Sergeant Henderson said apart from being "a little bit cold from a long night out in the water", the man was in good spirits. Police and rescue crews had searched the lake until midnight. Sergeant Henderson said the rescue was aided by the man staying with his jet ski.

"Your actual vessel is the biggest object available for us to look for," he said. "It's so much easier to find than a person in the water so anyone is advised to stay with their vessel if they have this happen. It was obviously very easy, once the sun came up, to see this chap sitting on his jet ski, and that just made it so quick and easy to find him and get him warm again."