Thursday, July 28 2005 18:06 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: : It was a "leap of fate" when Custard Fernandes jumped into the rough sea from a 15-meter deck with a towering inferno behind him.

"I have got a new life," the visibly relieved contractual worker at the Bombay High North (BHN) said alighting from the rescue ship, which brought him to the Mumbai coast.

Fernandes was resting after night duty when the fire alarm shook him out of slumber. "After hearing two blasts, I rushed to the lower deck and took a life jacket from the rig and plunged in the raging sea," he said.

"For four hours, I was in the sea before the rescue boat came as a God," he said adding, his limbs were lifeless after the four-hour ordeal in the sea. His family back in Goa is still not aware that he has come back alive and is very worried.

Assistant executive engineer with the ONGC A P Yadav was also sleeping when he received a message on his pager to abandon the platform. Immediately, donning his life jacket, he got into the lifeboat, which was lowered into the sea.

Yadav's family in Kanpur did not know about the incident till he told them. He said most of the ONGC personnel had families in Mumbai, who were very worried about them.