ATHENS – The unicorn had wings.
And when a 3-year-old girl climbed aboard the inflatable toy on Monday on a beach in the southern Greek city of Antirrio, the wind grabbed both her and the fleet device before her parents could respond. Within moments she was carried to sea, furious and alone, clinging to the neck of the unicorn.
That was when Grigoris Karnesis, a veteran Greek ferry captain, saw the child.
At first he could not believe what he saw. She was so small, and the toy she was floating moved so hard that he barely had time to think.
Mr. Karnesis, the 50-year-old captain of the Salaminomachos, advised to bring his 331-foot-long ferry next to the toy and rescue the girl. As he got closer, the crew of the ferry could hear their cries.
He had to steer the hulking ship – which can carry more than 300 cars and 500 passengers – close enough to the child for someone to grab them without risking the inflatable unicorn. The captain also had to keep in mind that the unicorn was caught in the backwash of the ship’s engine. He cut the first engine and worked to “make a lake,” as he described it, around the ferry.
When he was driving, the slope was used to load cars on the ferry and his brother Vasilis Karnesis, the ship mechanic, shoved to the edge of the platform and grabbed the girl from the sea.
“There was nothing this child could do,” he said when reached by telephone.
The rescue was recorded on video by a passenger, Petros Kritsonis, 45, who posted it online Monday. It quickly caused a sensation, and Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis called on the captain to thank him and his crew.
While Mr. Kritsonis said he had posted the video “to show the danger of the sea games we all use extensively,” social media quickly filled in with comments from people who blamed the parents. The family refused requests for interviews and could not be reached on Friday, and Mr Karnesis said the criticism was dishonest.
“We don’t know what can happen from one moment to the next,” he said. “The sea is a deceitful thing.”
While some media accounts said the girl was 4 years old, Mr Karnesis said she was just 3 and that he was shocked to see the little child attached to the inflatable toy when it sailed hundreds of yards to sea. A father of two children himself, he said that if he had not safely returned the girl to her parents, he would not have been able to create his own family.
He said the girl’s family had told him that when the unicorn first started drifting off the beach, the girl’s father rushed to catch her, as did others on the beach. People on the beach grabbed a nearby dinghy and tried to row it out, but were caught in the strong current.
When the Greek authorities were informed, they rushed to Mr Karnesis’ ship because it was closest to the scene. The captain estimated that she drove for about 20 minutes.
When the girl was finally pulled into safety, she was overwhelmed by what was happening.
“She was in shock, she did not speak, she was frozen,” said Mr Kritsonis, the passenger filming the rescue.
She was soon reunited with her wounded mother, who was also speechless.
“We just did what we had to do,” said Vasilis Karnesis, the ship’s mechanic. In his 22 years at sea, he said, this was the first time he had to deal with rescuing a child.
“The next day,” he said, “we felt proud.”
