Webcam Saves Man Stranded On Sea Ice

siloko writes "A German walker, stranded on sea ice after abandoning the beach in favor of a better picture of the sunset, has been saved after flashes from his camera were spotted by a tourist webcam viewer hundreds of miles away. After darkness fell over the seaside town of St Peter-Ording, the walker became disoriented and couldn't locate the coast. In desperation, the walker, who hasn't been named, started using his camera flash to attract attention, which was noticed by a woman watching a webcam of the area. She notified the police, who located the man and escorted him to safety."

BS

[j00r0m4nc3r]

I'm gonna call BS on this. This lady was watching a webcam of a coastal area at nighttime? Why would you do that? And saw a flash 100+ miles away, and based on this decides to call the police? The local police then scour the ice and find this guy who is 100+ miles away? There is either a piece of information missing here, or this is not a completely honest story. Or I'm just horribly cynical.

Re:

[v1]

I think it depends on why she called the police. She might have been a UFO nut or something that wa really freaked out by the light which is why she called. I don't think she realized who or what it was. The police she called however, may have been aware of the missing person, put the facts together, and took a chance on it.

Re:

[graffic]

Also the lady understood that a flash "far away" was something unusual for that webcam. This means that our lady was an "addict" of that video feed and was able to understand in a blink what is usual and what is not usual.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe you're missing something. She was hundreds of miles away watching a stream from a webcam which was relatively close to the stranded tourist. As for why there's a webcam of the area, I'd guess it's for seal watching or something similar. Nothing all that bizarre or strange.

Re:

[Bigbutt]

The article said it was a popular place to get pictures of the sunset. Likely it's the same reason the webcam was up especially since she was watching the sunset as well.

Since it's popular, according to the police there are several incidents of tourists going out onto the ice to get those sunset pictures and getting disoriented and missing the shore, especially as it was covered in snow.

Carl

doubtful

[w1gglyw0rld]

Given the curvature of the earth, can you see 100+ miles? No.

Re:

[bughunter]

Um. No.

For an observer at 6ft from sea level, the distance to the horizon [ringbell.co.uk] is 3.25 miles.

If you want to see a distance of 100 miles, then you need an altitude of 6660 feet.

More detail here [sdsu.edu]

Re:

[lakin]

Not just by myself. But a webcam combined with this new thing called the internet can span those 100+ miles. The webcam was in the same area as the tourist, the viewer was hundreds of kilometres away.

Re:

[w1gglyw0rld]

Oh, I get it. The WEB-CAM was within a reasonable distance of the wayward photographer, not the VIEWER OF the web-cam. If that's the case, I stand corrected.