How Did Medics Drop British Grandmother Janet Richardson Into Icy North Sea?

Police are investigating a bizarre incident at sea involving a 73-year-old British grandmother who took ill on a cruise ship and was accidentally dropped into the sub-zero North Sea by medics trying to transfer her to a rescue boat.

Janet Richardson, a diabetic from Cumbria in the U.K., was on the Ocean Princess off Norway with her husband, George, 78, when she began bleeding internally. The ship's captain told Norwegian officials to send a rescue boat so they could get her to the closest hospital, British media reported today.

But when medics arrived and attempted to transfer the stretcher-bound Richardson from the cruise ship into a smaller rescue boat, she slipped from their grasp and plunged into the 26-degree sea. Richardson flailed about in the frigid temperatures for between four and eight minutes before she was finally rescued.

"The two vessels were steaming at 10 knots at the time they tried to transfer her, but they didn't lash them together," fellow passenger Colin Prescott said, according to the Mirror.

"There were two people on the search-and-rescue boat and others passing the stretcher across from deck three of the ship on the other side. But the boats suddenly moved apart by several feet and they couldn't keep hold of it."

Prescott said many passengers were watching on deck and one woman fainted when she saw what happened next.

"When they dropped it there was pandemonium," he said. "She went down into the water and within seconds was about half a mile from the ship. ... We couldn't believe they had let her fall -- especially with the water being so cold."

Richardson's husband told reporters: "It was traumatic to see her fall. I thought I was going to lose her."

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It was not immediately clear why the accident, which occurred March 29, was not revealed until today. But photos of Richardson's unfortunate icy plunge were plastered on the front page of British newspapers and TV newscasts, and police told The Associated Press they had begun an investigation into what happened.

Richardson was eventually taken to a hospital in Bodo, Norway, which lies north of the Arctic Circle, after being retrieved from the sea. A few days later she was airlifted to Cumberland infirmary in Carlisle, where she is receiving treatment and said to still be in serious condition, the Guardian reported.

"Luckily Janet had a lifebelt on which saved her life. She was fully aware of what happened," Shirley Bottelfsen of the Bodo hospital told the Guardian. "Naturally, from the cold water she became weaker. Janet improved every day she was with us, but it will take some time to be completely recovered."