A sea captain once related a thrilling incident from his own experience.
A few years ago he was sailing by the island of Cuba when the cry ran through the ship, ’Man overboard!’ It was impossible to steer the ship in time, so he seized a rope and threw it over the ship’s stern, crying out to the man to seize it as for his life. The sailor caught the rope just as the ship was passing. There was no way he can pull himself up. The captain immediately took another rope and, making a slip noose of it, attached it to the other and slid it down to the struggling sailor and directed him to pass it over his shoulders and under his arms, and he would be drawn on board.
The captain said, "He was rescued, but he had grasped the rope with such firmness, with such a death-grip, that it took hours before his hold relaxed and his hand could be separated from it. With such eagerness, indeed, had he clutched the object that was to save him, that the strands of rope became embedded in the flesh of his hands!" - Charles H Spurgeon, The Quotable Spurgeon