Hypothermic man rescued miles out at sea turns out to be internet icon ‘Frostbit Boy’

Some stories you really can’t make up, such as this one about a man who was rescued out at sea.

Ruairí McSorley, 24, was found 4km from shore surrounded by dolphins after spending 12 hours battling the waves off the coast of Ireland.

The 24-year-old told the Irish Independent that he’d taken a “spur of the moment” swim in early on Sunday morning when he got into trouble.

He was found by members of the local County Kerry RNLI at 8.15pm the same day and was “dangerously hypothermic”.

What’s perhaps most remarkable about McSorley’s tale is the incredible irony that underpins it: back in 2015, he earned himself the enduring nickname “Frostbit Boy” after detailing his struggles with the cold.

A teenager at the time, he was walking to school through the snow when he was stopped by a UTV news camera crew and asked for his opinion on the icy conditions.

He instantly began chatting away in what many would agree is a pretty thick Northern Irish accent.

“Oh God it’s desperate, wild time in the snow alright,” McSorley told the interviewer, before lamenting that his mother said he still had to go to school.

Asked whether his journey felt particularly chilly, he uttered the immortal line: “Oh god, you wouldn’t be long getting frostbit.”

Watch the iconic interview here (you’ll find his “frostbit” quote 16 seconds in):

Although admittedly McSorley’s return to the headlines doesn’t involve any snow, he did get cold, very cold, and probably wasn’t far off “getting frostbit”.

Speaking to the Irish Independent after his release from hospital on Tuesday, the 24-year-old explained that the Fenit lifeboat crew wrapped him up in blankets, took his body temperature and then “just rushed me into the hospital”.

Despite his ordeal, he insisted that he hadn’t been left scarred by the experience.

“There’s no victim mentality there. Other than a bit of pain at the back of my knee, I’m 100 per cent. There’s no long-term damage,” he told the paper.

“The only thing was my kidneys needed to readjust, so there has been no serious harm. It was only a matter of going into the hospital to heat up a bit. Other than that, I was fine.”

Indeed, no sooner had he been rescued from the freezing water than he started cracking jokes with the RNLI team.

He admitted: “Apparently, the first thing I said to them was, ‘I’ll not have to pay for this, will I?’”

He clearly hasn’t lost his sense of humour over the past six years, nor his tireless ability to chat.