(Video) Man Survives Hours Lost At Sea By Turning Jeans Into Flotation Device

A German sailor spent more than three hours lost at sea after falling from a yacht last Thursday. Thanks to his quick thinking and his pair of jeans, which he turned into a flotation device, he was able to survive the ordeal.

Murke with his Filipina girlfriend.

"Without the jeans, I wouldn't be here today — they were really the thing that saved me," Arne Murke told the press after he was successfully rescued.

Murke, 30, had been sailing with his brother to deliver the yacht from New Zealand to Brazil when the mainsheet of the vessel suddenly came loose which caused the boom to swim around, knocking him overboard.

"I was floating in the water not wearing any life jacket," he said. "Just my T-shirt, my jeans, that was all."

"My brother started directly to get me, but the swell was like three meters. He threw a life jacket with a rope overboard. I couldn't reach that, it was already too far away. Then I think the motor exploded."

Fortunately, Murke remembered the Navy Seal technique of turning jeans into a life-saving buoyancy apparatus.

"I saw it many years ago, and I always thought, if I ever go overboard without a life jacket, I'm going to do that," he said.

"I took a deep breath, took out my jeans, made knots at the end of the legs and inflated the jeans — pull it over water and get air inside and then push it under water — I had like an improvised life vest."

Murke added that thinking about his 10-month-old daughter, who lives with his girlfriend in the Philippines, kept him going while lost at sea. He was rescued over 3 hours after the accident. Watch below a video of his rescue: