When experienced yachtsman Matt Visser re-watches the moment he was knocked unconscious into the water, it brings a sickening feeling to his stomach.
He was performing a 360-degree turn on his yacht, after hitting a mark in a Brisbane regatta last week, when the wind caught his sail and sent the boom into his head.
A day after leaving the intensive care unit in hospital, Mr Visser highlighted the critical role played by his rescuers, who were trained in CPR.
"I wouldn't be talking to you today, that's for sure," he said.
"I was facedown in the water and lost my pulse very quickly.
"It took 14 minutes to resuscitate me."
An experienced yachtsman
The 57-year-old has loved sailing since he was five, learning from his father who competed at two Olympics.
Mr Visser said he sailed in about 10 yacht races a year and at many of those he would not have been so "lucky".
"I've been in regattas before where we've had really bad weather and we're lucky that no one has been knocked out because there was nobody on the course proficient in CPR," he said.
He said multiple people were required to retrieve him from the ocean, remove the water from his lungs and bring him back to life.
"They were there within a minute," Mr Visser said.
"It was just like a well-oiled machine, the way everyone just sprang into action.
"I've got friends that were there and they said, 'Mate, it was incredible.'"
All hands on deck
Mr Visser thanked his rescuers Mark Dingley, Mike Middleton, Mel Cochrane and Rod West.
Qualified yacht master Mike Middleton was filming the race when the incident occurred.
"I was zooming in on my camera and you could see that there was a hell of a whack and we really heard it," he said.
"It was pretty much one hell of an epic, superhuman effort to get this guy into the boat."
Mr Middleton said his experience as a surf lifesaver, and following the Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron protocol for dealing with crisis situations, enabled him to stay calm.
"He [Mr Visser] was full of water, his stomach and lungs were full of water, and he was frothing at the mouth," he said.
"We probably saw him lose about a bucket-and-a-half of water out of his lungs when we started doing CPR and Mark did CPR three times.
"Once we saw him start to attempt to breathe, we just looked at each other in the eyes — it's better than winning lotto."
CPR 'imperative'
Apart from 14 staples in his scalp that resembled a "Mercedes Benz-type-cut", Mr Visser said he had walked away mostly unscathed.
He said the incident highlighted the need for wider training in CPR.
"It's imperative that you have at least three people on a course you can use, because if you get really wild weather, you can sometimes have four or five incidents on the one course at one time," Mr Visser said.
He said he planned to complete a CPR course himself once fully recovered.
