A woman who fell from deck 10 of the Royal Caribbean cruise ship was found alive after crew members scrambled for an hour-long rescue operation.

On Sunday, a passenger, identified only as a 42-year-old woman, fell overboard while sailing on Royal Caribbean’s Mariner of the Seas Fox 35. report.

“Coast Guard officers in the San Juan District identified a 42-year-old U.S. citizen passenger who fell overboard from the cruise ship Mariner of the Seas around 5:44 p.m. Sunday. We’ve received reports of a rescue,” Fox 35 reported. quoting a statement from the United States Coast Guard (USCG). USCG officials also said the cruise ship was about 47 nautical miles south of Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, en route to Willemstad, Curacao, at the time of the incident.

A passenger who fell overboard on a cruise ship was rescued. The rescue took about 45 minutes overall, according to people on board the Royal Caribbean’s Mariner of the Seas on Sunday. https://t.co/cE0pmxSJNZ

— FOX 35 Orlando (@fox35orlando) June 27, 2023

Witnesses to the incident recalled passengers standing on balconies with binoculars looking for the woman, but she fell from the 10th floor deck and would not be found alive, if at all. many believed. (Related: 15-year-old boy dies after falling off cruise ship)

“After I saw the life raft, the life preservers and the smoke, I thought, ‘Someone died,'” passenger Matthew Kuhn told Fox 35.

Royal Caribbean said in a statement to the newspaper that cruise ship officials contacted local authorities and searched for the woman “immediately after” she fell. After a nearly hour-long search, the guest “recovered safely” and was returned to the ship, where he was assisted and assisted by a care team, the statement continued.

Cheers and applause erupted as the woman was safely carried aboard the ship.

I mean, ‘She probably won’t be found’ – and … it’s ‘Oh my God, they found her, and she’s alive! ‘It’s not about recovering her body,'” Kuhn told the media.

The USCG said the passengers were taken to the ship’s medical facility and then transferred to a hospital in Willemstad, Curacao, for evaluation, although no medical evaluation was requested by Royal Caribbean. The USCG is currently investigating the circumstances that led to the passenger’s fall, the newspaper said.