Man survived two days at sea by hanging on to buoy after falling off boat on Christmas Day

Shocking footage has emerged showing the moment a man was discovered after falling off his boat on Christmas Day.

The 43-year-old was ruled as missing after his boat was found floating in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Brazil.

Eventually he was tracked down by a fellow fisherman where he was found on top of a signal buoy, having been stranded alone for all that time.

It all started on Sunday (25 December) when he decided to do a spot of work alone at Atafona beach, only to fall off his vessel.

"But it's really an enormous weight of water, there was no way to swim against it."

You can only imagine the panic.

After noticing he was missing, his family and friends starting looking for him while calling in the Navy to help with the rescue mission.

Eventually his colleagues came across his boat, but their relief soon turned to concern after noticing it was empty.

Although most would lose it in this situation (myself included), Soares tried his best to stay calm.

He removed his clothes as they were weighing him down and allowed himself to drift rather than using up valuable energy swimming against the tide.

The fisherman's plan paid off – around eight kilometres from where the boat was, he came across a signal buoy.

But getting there was no mean feat. "There was swell, wind," he continued.

"I decided to let the waters take me to use less strength and 'walk' faster. And it took me about four hours swimming to get to Porto do Acu, on the buoys."

Soares managed to keep himself going despite the circumstances, just waiting in the hope that someone would arrive.

On the second day, his hopes came true after he was spotted by another fisherman.

"Many times I thought I was going to die of cold until help arrived," he said.

After being seen to by medical staff for dehydration, Soares has amazingly returned to fishing - clearly that brush with death wasn't enough to keep him from fulfilling his duties.

And he's learned an important lesson along the way, saying: "I had the second opportunity to face life with different eyes and to be a better man."